Dictionary of the Ben cao gang mu, Volume 3

Li Shizhen (1518–1593) compiled The Ben cao gang mu in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by himself. Grounded of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, this is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its content is the description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. The Ben cao gang mu dictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This third book in a three-volume series offers detailed biographical data on all identifiable authors, patients, witnesses of therapies, transmitters of recipes, and further persons mentioned in the Ben cao gang mu and provides bibliographical data on all textual sources resorted to and quoted by Li Shizhen and his collaborators.
Ben cao gang mu: 16th Century Chinese Encyclopedia of Materia Medica and Natural History