Shén Nóng Běncǎo Jīng: The Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica 3rd Edition

Shén Nóng Běncǎo Jīng: The Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica 3rd Edition
Author: Sabine Wilms
Publisher:
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2017-01-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780991342952

This book is a literal translation of one of the earliest and most important classics of Chinese medicine and natural science: the Shén Nóng B'nc'o J'ng ? or "Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica." Compiled in the third century CE but undoubtedly much older in content, it contains information on 365 substances that were considered to have beneficial effects on the human body.

Shang Han Lun

Shang Han Lun
Author: Zhang Ji
Publisher: Paradigm Publications
Total Pages: 1281
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0990869865

The Shang Han Lun has been a primary treatment theory and practice source for nearly two millenia. Its author, Zhang Zhong Jing, has been named the “Chinese Hippocrates” to highlight the depth and breadth of his contribution to traditional Chinese drug therapy. This edition features the Chinese text, Pinyin transliteration, and an English translation of the entire Song Dynasty text, the content and textual order most used in Asia. Just as in Chinese language editions, it is fully supplemented with notes and commentaries. The notes describe the clinical symptoms Zhang Zhong Jing associated with the Chinese terms. For example, modern interpretations of a “moderate” pulse often refer to the speed of its beats. The same term, when used in the Shang Han Lun, refers to a pulse that is loose, soft, and harmonious. Such notes provide practitioners with the clinical observations necessary to properly apply the information. The commentaries further enhance the text’s clinical utility by explaining the theoretical and practical foundations behind the lines of text. Because entire bodies of theory and practice can be associated with the terms and expressions used in canonical works like the Shang Han Lun, commentaries have become a standard means of knowledge acquisition for Asian students. The commentaries in this edition serve exactly the same purpose, greatly enhancing its utility. The introductory matter explains the background of the text, the conceptual structure of its contents, and the problems of exegesis. The appendices are designed to assist those studying Chinese and the glossary and the full Pinyin-English index make this an easily accessed reference.

Healing with Poisons

Healing with Poisons
Author: Yan Liu
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2021-06-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295749016

Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295749013 At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically employed as healing agents to cure everything from abdominal pain to epidemic disease. Healing with Poisons explores the ways physicians, religious figures, court officials, and laypersons used toxic substances to both relieve acute illnesses and enhance life. It illustrates how the Chinese concept of du—a word carrying a core meaning of “potency”—led practitioners to devise a variety of methods to transform dangerous poisons into effective medicines. Recounting scandals and controversies involving poisons from the Era of Division to the Tang, historian Yan Liu considers how the concept of du was central to how the people of medieval China perceived both their bodies and the body politic. He also examines the wide range of toxic minerals, plants, and animal products used in classical Chinese pharmacy, including everything from the herb aconite to the popular recreational drug Five-Stone Powder. By recovering alternative modes of understanding wellness and the body’s interaction with foreign substances, this study cautions against arbitrary classifications and exemplifies the importance of paying attention to the technical, political, and cultural conditions in which substances become truly meaningful. Healing with Poisons is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of the University of Buffalo.

On Their Own Terms

On Their Own Terms
Author: Benjamin A. Elman
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 606
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674036476

In On Their Own Terms, Benjamin A. Elman offers a much-needed synthesis of early Chinese science during the Jesuit period (1600-1800) and the modern sciences as they evolved in China under Protestant influence (1840s-1900). By 1600 Europe was ahead of Asia in producing basic machines, such as clocks, levers, and pulleys, that would be necessary for the mechanization of agriculture and industry. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Elman shows, Europeans still sought from the Chinese their secrets of producing silk, fine textiles, and porcelain, as well as large-scale tea cultivation. Chinese literati borrowed in turn new algebraic notations of Hindu-Arabic origin, Tychonic cosmology, Euclidian geometry, and various computational advances. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, imperial reformers, early Republicans, Guomindang party cadres, and Chinese Communists have all prioritized science and technology. In this book, Elman gives a nuanced account of the ways in which native Chinese science evolved over four centuries, under the influence of both Jesuit and Protestant missionaries. In the end, he argues, the Chinese produced modern science on their own terms.

Xie's Chinese Veterinary Herbology

Xie's Chinese Veterinary Herbology
Author: Huisheng Xie
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 632
Release: 2011-11-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1119949564

Xie's Chinese Veterinary Herbology serves as a practical guide to the theory and application of Chinese Herbal Medicine into veterinary practices. Divided into three parts, the book covers herbal materia medica used in treating various disorders and diseases, herbal formulas, and the clinical application of treatments. The book also outlines each herb's history, the formulation of herbal recipes, energetic actions, indications and contraindications of each formula, dosages, and clinical and pharmacological studies performed with herbal treatments. This text serves as an invaluable reference to veterinarians looking to expand treatment options.

Alternative Medicine for the Elderly

Alternative Medicine for the Elderly
Author: P. Cherniack
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2003-04-23
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9783540441694

This book on complementary alternative medicine (CAM) for the Elderly provides a critical and objective evaluation of alternative medical therapy for the elderly. The focus on practical aspects such as adverse effects and general risks of various therapeutic methods makes it a valuable reference book for the general practitioner, for geriatricians and professionals within the area of alternative medicine, but also for interested laypeople. In the three sections, Epidemiology, Types of CAM, and Common Medical Problems and CAM, a broad range of issues are covered. They range from drug compliance in elderly people to CAM in the treatment of specific conditions such as pulmonary diseases, arthritis or cancer. The above features and in particular the unbiased approach to discuss the pros and cons of CAM make this publication a must-have for everybody searching for detailed information on alternative medicine for the elderly.