Bencao Gangmu: Li Shizhen’s classification, entries and editions

Li Shizhen was a physician from Hubei in Ming China. He assembled descriptions from earlier materia medica alongside his observations and medical experience, reorganizing names and classifications. Works such as the Song Zhenglei Bencao supplied inherited material, which he supplemented with explanations and discussion. The resulting Bencao Gangmu combined knowledge of medicines, natural substances and everyday products.

A substance could appear under different names in different books, or be confused with another because of its origin or appearance. Li brought these questions into the entries, allowing names, visible characteristics and recorded uses to be compared.

References: [1]

The work organizes substances into categories, including water, fire, minerals, plants, grains, fruits and animals. Its editorial principles place a main name at the head of an entry and other names in an explanatory subsection. Collected explanations discuss origins, appearance and collection, while other subsections address doubts and errors in earlier accounts. Names and classification guide retrieval and reorganize dispersed information.

References: [1]

Further subsections preserve preparation, properties, uses, explanations and formulas. Earlier statements are attributed to their authors, and new discussion is placed beside them. An entry can therefore contain textual names, regional information and descriptions of experience. Knowledge of medicines is connected with the identification of plants, animals, minerals and household materials.

References: [1]

Hu Chenglong published the first edition at Jinling in 1596, in fifty-two volumes. Printing turned years of collected material into a substantial book that could be reproduced and circulated, followed by further editions. It had reached Japan by the early seventeenth century, where Edo-period scholars continued using it through reading, correction and reprinting.

A newly corrected Japanese edition of 1714 included related works by Inō Nobuyoshi. Annotations and additions in different editions preserve readers’ work on names, identification and the organization of natural knowledge.

References: [1] [2]