Ben Jing Feng Yuan

Ben Jing Feng Yuan is a materia medica work by Zhang Lu (courtesy name Luyu, later styled Shiwang Laoren), a physician of the Qing dynasty, completed in the thirty-fourth year of the Kangxi reign (1695). Zhang Lu held that the Shennong Bencao Jing recorded only a limited number of drugs, some of which had been lost or were of little clinical value, while many drugs commonly used in practice were not described in detail. Basing his work on the Bencao Jing and adopting the classification method of the Bencao Gangmu, he divided more than seven hundred commonly used drugs into thirty-two sections: water, fire, earth, metal, stone, halite stones, mountain herbs, fragrant herbs, marsh herbs, toxic herbs, vine herbs, aquatic herbs, rock herbs, moss herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits, aquatic fruits, flavored substances, fragrant woods, tall trees, shrubs, parasitic woods, flowering woods, clothing and implements, insects, dragons and snakes, fish, shells, birds, beasts, and humans. The complete work comprises four volumes. Although titled after the Bencao Jing, the book does not focus on verifying names and descriptions, nor does it reproduce the original text of the Bencao Jing item by item; it emphasizes clinical practicality and is especially discriminating in its selection of drugs. Under each drug, it first cites the original text of the Bencao Jing or records from various materia medica works, explaining nature and flavor, efficacy, indications, as well as processing, place of origin, and macroscopic identification, and then adds a section entitled "Faming" (Elucidation), which expounds the pharmacology and clinical application and includes Zhang Lu's own scholarly views and experience in prescribing. This work was completed when Zhang Lu was seventy-nine years old and embodies his insights from more than sixty years of medical practice and drug use. Among Qing-dynasty materia medica works it is renowned for its close alignment with clinical practice and its original views. During the Guangxu reign, Yan Shihui included it in the Medical Primer series. The present edition is the "Chinese Medical Classics Library" edition published by China Press of Traditional Chinese Medicine, collated and annotated with the Kangxi yihai (1695) edition as the base text and the Medical Primer edition as the reference text, making it accessible to modern readers.