Běncǎo Cóngxīn 本草從新
Materia Medica, Renewed by 吳儀洛 (Wú Yílù, zì Zūnchéng 遵程, fl. mid-18th c., 清)
About the work
The Běncǎo cóngxīn is the principal mid-18th-century pharmacological reference, intended as an updated successor to Wāng Áng 汪昂’s Běncǎo bèiyào (KR3ec038). Wú Yílù — a younger physician of the next Huīzhōu / Jiāngnán generation — argued that Wāng’s Bèiyào, while widely loved, had become outdated through the seventy years since its publication, and that the work needed cóngxīn (renewal). His 18-juǎn expansion (compared to Wāng’s original 8-juǎn) adds substantially more substances (over 720 entries against Wāng’s 478), updated clinical commentary, and revised processing notes reflecting Kāngxī-Qiánlóng pharmacy practice.
Each substance entry gives qìwèi, channel-entry, main effects, contraindications, processing methods, and clinical pairing rules, in the Bèiyào template but with substantially more detail. The work was completed in Qiánlóng 22 (1757) and became the dominant Qīng pharmacological textbook from that date until the early 20th century, often used in parallel with Wāng Áng’s original.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance entries. Standard editions preserve Wú Yílù’s autograph preface (date 乾隆二十二年 = 1757) and editorial fán lì.
Abstract
Wú Yílù (吳儀洛, CBDB 511072 — no confident dates), zì Zūnchéng 遵程, native of Hǎiyán 海鹽 (modern Zhèjiāng), fl. Kāngxī-Qiánlóng era. He was a private physician embedded in the Jiāngnán medical-publishing network. His other works include the Chéngfāng qiè yòng 成方切用 (1761, a prescription reference) and miscellaneous clinical-case publications. His lifedates are not securely fixed but are conventionally taken as c. 1704 – c. 1766.
The Cóngxīn is the principal late-Qīng / Mínguó pharmacological reference and is the textbook from which most 20th-century zhōngyī students learned pre-modern Chinese pharmacology, often in combination with Huáng Gōngxiù 黃宮繡’s Běncǎo qiú zhēn (KR3ec051) of 1769.
Translations and research
- Wú Yīhuá 吳一華. 1989. Běncǎo cóngxīn (校注). Renmin weisheng.
- Bensky, Dan, et al. 2004. Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica. 3rd ed. — frequently cites Cóngxīn.
- No complete Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: Q11078343 (Běncǎo cóngxīn).
- 本草從新 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB