The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica: A Translation of the Shen Nong Ben Cao (Blue Poppy's Great Masters Series)
Publisher's Foreword The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (The  Divine Farmer's Materia Medica Classic) is one of the 10 premodern  classics of Chinese medicine selected in the People's Republic of  China as nationwide research priorities within the Chinese medical  literature. Also referred to as the Shen Nong Ben Jing, the Shen  Nong Ben Cao, the Ben Cao Jing, and simply the Ben Jing, it is one  of the two most important of these 10 preeminent Chinese medical  classics. The Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow Emperior's Inner  Classic) is the locus classicus of Chinese medical theory and  especially acupuncture and moxibustion, while the Shen Nong Ben Cao  Jing is the locus classicus of so-called Chinese herbal medicine.  All the rest of the Chinese medical literature, both premodern and  contemporary, is built on the foundation of these two seminal  texts. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why we have  chosen to publish this first English language translation of the  Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing as part of Blue Poppy Press's Great Masters  Series.Shen Nong is one of the three greatest heroes of Chinese culture,  the other two being the Yellow Emperor and Fu Xi, the revealer of  the eight trigrams. These three legendary divine beings are  credited as being the fountainhead of Chinese lifearts. The name  Shen Nong can be translated as Divine Farmer, Divine Peasant,  Divine Agriculturist, or Divine Husbandman. Among his numerous  discoveries and revelations, Shen Nong is credited with teaching  the Chinese people how to farm -- thus his most common name. The  first reference to a connection between Shen Nong and Chinese  herbal medicine is found in the Huai Nan Zi (The South of the Huai  Master) written by Liu An who died in 122 bce."Ancient people ate grasses and drank water. They gathered the  fruit from trees and ate the meat of clams. They frequently  suffered from disease and poisoning. Then Shen Nong taught people  for the first time how to sow the five grains, to observe whether  the land was dry or wet, fertile or rocky, located in the hills or  in the lowlands. He tasted the flavors of all the herbs and  springs, [determining] whether they were bitter or sweet. Thus he  taught people what to avoid and where they could go. At that time,  [Shen Nong] encountered 70 [herbs] in one day, [determining which  were] medicines and [which were] poisons."This is the first surviving recorded instance in the Chinese  literature crediting Shen Nong with determining the medicinal  properties of things by tasting them himself. This story has then  been repeated and embellished upon down through the centuries. Some  versions even give Shen Nong a see-through stomach so he could  witness the effects of what he ate on his internal organs!The words ben and cao mean tree roots and grasses or herbs  respectively. Therefore, as a compound term, they generically refer  to the Chinese materia medica, and materia medica is the most  commonly used translation of ben cao used in Engish today. Ben and  cao are used in Chinese medicine to refer to materia medica in  general because the overwhelming majority of traditional Chinese  medicinals are dervied from vegetable sources. However, since the  Chinese materia medica also includes mineral and animal medicinals,  we have used the words, "so-called Chinese herbal medicine," above.As mentioned previously, this work is the locus classicus of the  ben cao or materia medica literature of Chinese medicine. It is  this literature which describes the ingredients of Chinese  medicine, their flavors and natures (i.e., temperatures), their  functions, and indications. According to this book, medicinals have  five basic flavors -- sour, salty, sweet, bitter, and acrid -- and  four qi or natures -- cold, hot, warm, and cool. Hot diseases  should be treated with cold medicinals and cold diseases should be  treated with hot medicinals. This book also introduced the first  method of classifying Chinese medicinals. Within this classic, all  medicinals are classified into three grades or categories: superior  medicinals corresponding to heaven which govern the maintenance of  life and are without toxicity, medium medicinals corresponding to  humankind which benefit human nature and have some medicinal  functions, and inferior medicinals corresponding to earth which  cure disease and definitely do have some toxicity. Further,  medicinals are also categorized into sovereigns, ministers,  assistants, and envoys. Hence, one can find all the most basic and  elemental theories of Chinese herbal medicine in seminal form in  this classic.