Manga Shennong's Herbal. Volume 1

Author: Zhu Shifeng
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-10-01
Features: Authored during the Han Dynasty, the Shen Nong's Herbal Classic (also known as Shen Nong's Herbal) is a comprehensive collection of pharmaceutical knowledge from the Warring States and Qin-Han periods, making it China's earliest specialized pharmacological text. It is also known as Shen Nong's Herbal and abbreviated as Herbal Classic or Basic Canon. The true author remains unknown, and the attribution to Shen Nong was to honor one of the ancestors of the Chinese nation, who was revered for tasting hundreds of herbs and saving humanity. As early as the Qin and Han dynasties, not only did official institutions dedicated to studying medicine emerge, but folk research also flourished, laying a solid foundation for the Shen Nong's Herbal Classic.
The book lists 365 medicinal substances, including 252 plants, 67 animals, and 46 minerals. Based on their properties and functions, the Shen Nong's Herbal Classic categorizes medicines into three grades—upper, middle, and lower—marking China's earliest pharmacological classification system. In its preface, the text outlines the fundamental theories of pharmacology at the time. For example, it introduces the theory of "principal, deputy, assistant, and envoy" in medical prescriptions, principles of drug preparation, and the "Four Qi and Five Flavors" theory, which states that drugs possess "five flavors" (sour, salty, sweet, bitter, pungent) and "four qi" (cold, hot, warm, cool).
The book includes six modernly common Chinese herbs such as ginseng, licorice, and rhubarb, proposing treatments for over 170 diseases across internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, dentistry, and other fields. The method of using ephedra to treat asthma recorded in the Basic Canon is the earliest documented in the world. These remedies remain widely used in traditional Chinese medicine and by the general public to this day.
The Shen Nong's Herbal Classic laid the foundation for ancient pharmacology and exerted a profound influence on the development of later pharmacological studies. Subsequent medical scholars continuously supplemented it, giving rise to numerous herbal texts.