Běncǎo Gāngmù Shíyí 本草綱目拾遺
Supplementary Gleanings to the Compendium of Materia Medica by 趙學敏 (Zhào Xuémǐn, zì Shùxuān 恕軒, hào Yīsì 義斯, c. 1719 – c. 1805, 清)
About the work
The Běncǎo gāngmù shíyí is the major late-Qīng supplement to Lǐ Shízhēn 李時珍’s Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025) — the most significant new pharmacology of the late 18th century. Zhào Xuémǐn worked on the manuscript from approximately 1765 through 1803, adding 716 substances not in the Gāngmù (including many newly introduced foreign drugs reflecting the Qiánlóng-era expansion of maritime trade with Southeast Asia and Europe, e.g. jīnjiàn 金雞納 / cinchona, qiū yáng yān 鴉片煙 / opium, yáng wěi 洋菸 / tobacco) plus extensive corrections to the Gāngmù’s factual errors. The work in 10 juǎn (printed posthumously in 1864 by Zhāng Yīngchāng 張應昌, building on a draft circulating in manuscript since 1803) is the principal Qīng pharmacological reference for substances that entered Chinese practice after 1593.
The work is notably bibliographically alert: Zhào cites over 600 books, including Western (e.g. Jesuit) sources, late-Qīng botanical compendia, regional gazetteers, and miscellaneous bǐjì. It is the principal Qīng pharmacological witness to the global expansion of Chinese drug knowledge.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance entries. Standard editions preserve Zhào’s preface (date 嘉慶八年 = 1803) and the 1864 publisher’s preface.
Abstract
Zhào Xuémǐn (趙學敏, c. 1719 – c. 1805), zì Shùxuān 恕軒, native of Qiántáng 錢唐 (Hángzhōu). He came from a literate Hángzhōu family and devoted himself to pharmacological research, accumulated an enormous private library at his Yīsìzhāi 義斯齋 study. Lifedates not securely fixed; conventional 1719–1805 from internal evidence in his prefaces and dated colophons. He never held office. His other works include Chuán yǎ nèi biān 串雅內編 / 外編 (1759, on folk-medical and itinerant practice) and the Yīlín jí yào 醫林集要.
The Shíyí is the principal Qīng “afterlife” of the Gāngmù and is the immediate ancestor of late-Qīng / Mínguó-era pharmacological encyclopedias. UNESCO-level scholarship has noted Zhào’s careful citation of Jesuit medical reports as evidence of early-modern Chinese engagement with European pharmacology.
Translations and research
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2008. Yī yuàn yáng yáng 醫院洋洋. Sanlian. — uses Zhào as a major exhibit.
- Bian, He. 2020. Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China. PUP. — extensive treatment.
- Nappi, Carla. 2009. The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China. HUP. — situates Zhào in the post-Gāngmù tradition.
- Zhāng Hèlóng 張和龍. 2007. Běncǎo gāngmù shíyí jiào diǎn 本草綱目拾遺校點. Renmin weisheng.
- No complete Western-language translation; partial translation in Nappi (2009).
Other points of interest
The Shíyí is the principal Chinese pharmacological witness to the entry of European medicines into late-imperial Chinese practice — including jīnjiàn (cinchona / quinine) for malaria, bāmùbiē (Strychnos nux-vomica) for paralysis, and various early Jesuit-mediated drugs. It is also the principal source for late-Qīng folk drug terminology, capturing pharmacological knowledge that circulated outside the formal physician class.
Links
- Wikidata: Q11078350 (Běncǎo gāngmù shíyí).
- 本草綱目拾遺 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB