Ben Cao Gang Mu

This is the original Chinese edition of theBen cao gang mu. Compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (15181593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, theBen cao gang muis considered the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge.