Dictionary of the Ben cao gang mu, Volume 2

TheBen cao gang mu, compiled in the second half of the sixteenth century by a team led by the physician Li Shizhen (15181593) on the basis of previously published books and contemporary knowledge, is the largest encyclopedia of natural history in a long tradition of Chinese materia medica works. Its description of almost 1,900 pharmaceutically used natural and man-made substances marks the apex of the development of premodern Chinese pharmaceutical knowledge. TheBen cao gang mudictionary offers access to this impressive work of 1,600,000 characters. This secondbook in a three-volume series verifies and localizes all 2,158 geographical and associated administrative names referred to in theBen cao gang muin connection with the origin and useof pharmaceutical substances.