One of the most important translations of this century

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This ancient book is a unique document based on literal quotes from more than 1000 literary sources from the preceding two millennia. Its author, the physician Li Shizhen, who lived from 1518-1593, took his knowledge from all echelons of Chinese historical society.  Beggars, convicts, monks, priests, physicians, scholars, dukes, and emperors were equally acknowledged as contributors. 

Internationally recognized Scholar Paul U. Unschuld will speak on the Běn Cǎo Gāng Mù 本草綱目, talking about its value to the modern practitioner. Dr. Unschuld is a professor and the Director of the Horst-Goertz Endowment Institute for the Theory, History, and Ethics of Chinese Life Sciences at Charité-Medical University Berlin and the author of several influential books on Chinese medicine, including Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing, and The Fall and Rise of China: Healing the Trauma of History. He is one of the foremost sinologists working today, a leading scholar of the history and ideas that underlie acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and one of the first Western scholars to examine Chinese medicine in a systemic and rigorous way.

One of the most impressive features of the Ben Cao Gang Mu is the detailed style of the discussion presented by author Li Shizhen. Nowhere else in pre-modern Chinese literature can you find citations of numerous different views and voices in a way that illustrates the development of knowledge about specific substances. In this way, the texts guide readers to definite judgment about the items' therapeutic potential and possible dangers. 

"I hope that the English translation of the Ben Cao Gang Mu will open a new era in the Western reception of Chinese Medicine. As valuable and indispensable as the many books on Chinese materia medica written in Western languages are, their content has been sifted through the sieves of modern knowledge, worldviews, and expectations. This Ben cao gang mu translation offers direct access to a vast accumulation of Chinese knowledge, a unique and valuable window into China’s past and culture." - Paul U. Unschuld 

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