ENGLISH

The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China

By Carla Nappi

Book information

Year
2009
ISBN
0674035291, 9780674035294
LCC
QH21.C6 N37 2009
Open Library ID
OL23180436M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1083584 bytes)
Edition
1
Pages
250\251
Topic
History
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

This is the story of a Chinese doctor, his book, and the creatures that danced within its pages. The Monkey and the Inkpot introduces natural history in sixteenth-century China through the iconic Bencao gangmu (Systematic materia medica) of Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The encyclopedic Bencao gangmu is widely lauded as a classic embodiment of pre-modern Chinese medical thought. In the first book-length study in English of Li’s text, Carla Nappi reveals a “cabinet of curiosities” of gems, beasts, and oddities whose author was devoted to using natural history to guide the application of natural and artificial objects as medical drugs. Nappi examines the making of facts and weighing of evidence in a massive collection where tales of wildmen and dragons were recorded alongside recipes for ginseng and peonies. Nappi challenges the idea of a monolithic tradition of Chinese herbal medicine by showing the importance of debate and disagreement in early modern scholarly and medical culture. The Monkey and the Inkpot also illuminates the modern fate of a book that continues to shape alternative healing practices, global pharmaceutical markets, and Chinese culture. (20100401)

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