Shíwù Běncǎo Huì Zuǎn 食物本草會纂
Compiled Materia Medica of Foodstuffs by 沈李龍 (Shěn Lǐlóng, zì Lóngyù 龍御, hào Yīshān shānrén 易山山人, fl. late 17th c., 清)
About the work
The Shíwù běncǎo huì zuǎn is the principal Qīng-dynasty dietetic pharmacopoeia. Shěn Lǐlóng’s 12-juǎn work was compiled in Kāngxī 28 (1689) and printed in Kāngxī 30 (1691). It builds directly on the late-Míng Shíwù běncǎo (KR3ec034) attributed to Xuē Jǐ, expanding and updating its content with Qīng botanical and ethnographic information. The work catalogues over 1,100 food substances organised by category (水部, 火部, 穀部, 菜部, 果部, 禽部, 獸部, 魚部, 味部 etc.) with each entry providing xìngwèi, primary effects, contraindications, and processing methods. Many entries include illustrations (woodblock, mid-quality).
Prefaces
The local repository contains only a header file. The standard editions preserve Shěn’s own preface (date Kāngxī 28 = 1689) and a preface by the well-known yīzōng publisher Wāng Áng 汪昂.
Abstract
Shěn Lǐlóng (沈李龍), zì Lóngyù 龍御, hào Yīshān shānrén 易山山人, native of Sūzhōu 蘇州 (Jiāngsū), fl. late 17th c. (the Kāngxī era). He was a private scholar-physician embedded in the Sūzhōu commercial-publishing networks of the Yánbó (耳目) press tradition. The work was widely reprinted through the Qīng and into the early Mínguó.
The Huì zuǎn is significant as the principal Qīng dietetic reference and as a witness to the early-Qīng standardisation of food-as-medicine pharmacology. It is referenced widely in late-Qīng household manuals and in the modern zhōngyī dietetic literature.
Translations and research
- Engelhardt, Ute. 2000. “Dietetics.” In Hsu (ed.), Innovation in Chinese Medicine. CUP.
- Bian, He. 2020. Know Your Remedies. PUP. — on Qīng food-as-medicine.
- No Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 食物本草會纂 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB