Běncǎo Xiángjié 本草詳節
Detailed Notes on the Materia Medica attributed to 薛己 (Xuē Jǐ, here under his hào Lìzhāi 立齋, the catalog form reading “薛立齋”, 1487–1559, 明)
About the work
The Běncǎo xiángjié is one of the mid-Míng Xuē-school pharmacologies, a 4-juǎn digest of the Gāngmù-tradition substance corpus organised for clinical reference. The catalog meta gives the author as “薛立齋” — Xuē Jǐ’s hào form — and dates the work to the Míng. The text is a relatively concise reference, providing for each substance the qìwèi, guījīng, and main effects in summary form, without the lengthy commentary characteristic of Miù Xīyōng 繆希雍’s Běncǎo jīng shū (KR3ec019) or Ní Zhūmó’s Huì yán (KR3ec033).
The work is part of the broader Xuē-school publishing programme that includes Shíwù běncǎo (KR3ec034) and Běncǎo yuē yán (KR3ec036). The relation between these three is debated: they may be three separate Xuē family productions, or they may represent three editions / formats of an underlying single Xuē-school pharmacological digest, marketed under different titles by different publishers.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves only the basic header (the directory has 12 small files but principal authorial paratext is not extracted in the local copy). Major Míng editions of the Xiángjié preserve a brief publisher’s preface noting Xuē’s authorship and the work’s intended use as a “abbreviated reference” (xiángjié 詳節 — “detailed yet condensed”).
Abstract
Xuē Jǐ (薛己, 1487–1559) — see his existing person note. The dating range reflects his lifetime. The work’s significance is mostly as a documentary witness to the Xuē-school medical publishing operation, one of the major Jiāngnán medical publishing networks of the mid-Míng.
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本草詳節 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB