李時珍の本草綱目とその版本

Abstract

The Pen-ts'ao-kang-mu (本草綱目) or Herbal of Li Shin-chen, who lived at the end of Ming (明), is an abbreviated version of the older Chinese herbal, the Cheng-lei-pen-ts'ao (証類本草), for practical purposes, but it exercised, a great influence over botany and medicine in China and Japan. There are many Japanese editions some of which suffer from many misprints and revisions. It seems, therefore, necessary for the students of the book to elucidate its tradition. The fact that this herbal was largely employed for practical purposes has necessarily led to the birth of poor editions with many misprints. Any serious student of the book should use the Chin-ling (金陵) or Chiang-hsi (江西) edition as his basic text, comparing with Chang (張)'s and Jo-shui (若水)'s editions.