Chinese Medicinal Herbs: A Modern Edition of a Classic Sixteenth-century Manual

Chinese scholars have been writing medical treatises for nearly 5,000 years, the grandest and most comprehensive of which is the herbal Pên T'sao, published by Li Shih-chên in 1578, after three decades of research. When Western physicians arrived in China in the mid-nineteenth century, they gained valuable insights into traditional Chinese medical practices. In the course of their daily work, they discovered that individuals often acted as their own doctors, employing natural remedies that were sufficiently effective to be worthy of research. Two doctors, C. A. Stuart and F. Porter Smith, used Li Shih-chên's Pên T'sao as their working base, translating the massive 16th-century document and annotating their translation with observations from their own experience. Chinese Medicinal Herbs has served as a basis for modern-day organic medicine and will prove of enormous interest to people in the field of alternative healing methods. A reference volume rather than a how-to manual, it comprises 1,892 varieties of drugs, derived from animals, vegetables, and minerals, and it includes 8,160 prescriptions. Students, professionals, and health-care practitioners of every specialty will want to have a copy of this landmark treatise, a treasury of tried-and-true wisdom from centuries of practical experience. Unabridged republication of the edition published by Georgetown Press, San Francisco, 1973. Botanical Terms and Common Terms.