Li Shizhen's　李時(shí)珍 (1518-1598) pharmacological book Bencao gangmu is the largest compendium on material medicine of China, probably also of the rest of the pre-modern world. It is based on older material medicine books and makes vast comments on the different material. The whole book describes 1882 kinds of materials that can be used for medical treating. Most material is also illustrated - either as simple black-print or - depending on the publishing - in colors.

What is the meaning of the title?

The Bencao Gangmu title, which Unschuld (1986:145) translates as "Materia Medica, Arranged according to Drug Descriptions and Technical Aspects," uses two Chinese compounds. Bencao ("roots and herbs; based on herbs, pharmacopeia, materia medica") combines ben (本 "root; origin; basis") and cao (草 "grass; plant; herb"). Gangmu ("detailed outline; table of contents") combines gang (綱 "main rope, hawser; main threads, essential principles") and mu (目 "eye; look; category, division"). The characters 綱 and 目 were later used as "class" and "order" respectively in biological classification.

What is the history of Bencao Gangmu?

Li Shizhen completed the first draft of the text in 1578, after conducting readings of 800 other medical reference books and carrying out 30 years of field study. For this and many other achievements Li Shizhen is being compared to the Shennong, a mythological God in Chinese myth who taught them about agriculture and herbal medicine.

What are the contents?

The Compendium of Materia Medica has 53 volumes in total:

1. At the very beginning is the table of contents, containing a list of entries included and 1,160 hand drawn diagrams to serve as illustration.

3. Volume 5 to 53 — the main content of the text, containing 1,892 distinct herbs, of which 374 was added by Li himself. There are 11,096 side prescriptions to treat common illness (8,160 of which is compiled or collected by Li).

What is the historical value of Bencao Gangmu?

It has a superior classification of medicinals. In total there are 16 categories. It was the most advanced classification in the world at that time, conforming with the theory of evolution.

It is not only a monograph on material medica, but also a work of academic value covering various subjects from medicine (phyisiology, pathology, clinical practice, hygiene and prevention), to botany, zoology, mineralogy, physics, chemisty,agronomy, astronomy and the like. This book has become a milestone in the history of Chinese material medica in the 16th century. Darwin, the british scientist, called it a Chinese encyclopedia. It has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Latin, English, French, German and other languages, and referred to as the "masterpiece of oriental medicine".

What is the education value of Bencao Gangmu?

As Chinese medical training has undergone a transition from the traditional master-apprentice system to modern university-style education, educators have realized the need for Chinese medical textbooks that efficiently teach the most clinically essential elements of a vast and complex body of traditional knowledge. In the latter half of the 20th century, materia medica textbooks

became part of a continually updated series of government-approved textbooks covering many facets of Chinese medicine: basic theory, diagnostics, materia medica, formulas, acupuncture, tuīná, gynecology, external medicine, internal medicine, and many other areas of expertise, such as fundamental classical texts and doctrines of famous doctors over the ages. It is on these textbooks that the major current materia medica works in English, including the Concise Chinese Materia Medica, are based."