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"It has been attempted in the following pages to supply the want of a work of reference, in which botanists dealing with Chinese plants preserved in European herbariums might find some particulars regarding the history of these collections, of which the labels affixed to the herbarium specimens generally give only an imperfect account." Emil Bretschneider (1833-1901) became famous among researchers for his valuable contributions to the field of sinology. His versatile approach - he was a physician and botanist as well as a sinologist - and his familiarity with Chinese literature distinguished him from his colleagues, many of whom were unable to read sources firsthand. Combining his abilities in botany and sinology, Bretschneider comprises an extensive history of Chinese plants and how they found their way to Europe. From the earliest accounts by Marco Polo, to the groundbreaking work of Carl Linnaeus, to the period of the Opium wars between England and China, this volume covers the works of European botanists up until 1860. Bretschneider does not limit his scope to China proper, but includes Mongolia, Tibet, Korea, and other regions, making this a uniquely comprehensive guide to European research on Asian plants.
"Traditional Chinese medicine has been practiced in various forms for more than a thousand years. Practitioners may heal patients with herbal remedies, acupuncture, massage, exercise, and modified diets. Even today, herbal medicines are of particular importance; Chinese pharmacies containing a vast array of remedies can be found in cities and towns the world over. This book is an interdisciplinary and cultural history of the concept of "pharmacy," both the drugs themselves and the trade in medicine, during the Ming and Qing dynasties of early modern China. This was a time of change for traditional Chinese medicine and for Chinese science as a whole. Many historians have argued that sixteenth-century China was a high point of scientific inquiry, followed by a period of intellectual decline. Though political and intellectual shifts led to a crisis of authority over pharmaceutical knowledge in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, Bian argues that this period of supposed intellectual decline was in fact characterized by numerous efforts to further refine and spread the pharmacological knowledge amassed in the Ming dynasty. She draws on a wide range of primary sources, but particularly through the study of bencao (pronounced "pen ts'ao"), a genre of encyclopaedic works, often called matteria medica or pharmacopoeia in the West, that collect information on medicinal substances. As the early modern Chinese Empire expanded and print culture became more widespread, the pursuit of medical remedies became a significant commercial enterprise. The author connects theory and practice of pharmacy during the Ming and Qing dynasties to broader developments in intellectual history, book culture, commerce, and taxation"--