This book is a literal translation of one of the earliest and most important classics of Chinese medicine and natural science: the Shén Nóng B'nc'o J'ng ? or "Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica." Compiled in the third century CE but undoubtedly much older in content, it contains information on 365 substances that were considered to have beneficial effects on the human body.

This text is written by the famous Confucianist and medical doctor Chen Xiuyuan (1753 - 1823 in Fu Jian), which was first printed in 1803."

Publication of the first English language translation of this Chinese medical text bearing the name of the most famous Chinese doctor of antiquity, Hua Tuo, gives Western practitioners access to what is, perhaps, the premier proto-Daoist medical classic. In particular, this book is a great source of information on pulse diagnosis and is the locus classicus of the theory of warm supplementation, containing numerous fascinating herbal and alchemical formulas for both internal and external usage.

This innovative collection opens a door into the rich history of animals in China. This title is also available as Open Access.

How did ancient scientific and knowledge-ordering writers make their work authoritative? This book answers that question for a wide range of ancient disciplines, from mathematics, medicine, architecture and agriculture, through to law, historiography and philosophy - focusing mainly, but not exclusively, on the literature of the Roman Empire. It draws attention to habits that these different fields had in common, while also showing how individual texts and authors manipulated standard techniques of self-authorisation in distinctive ways. It stresses the importance of competitive and assertive styles of self-presentation, and also examines some of the pressures that pulled in the opposite direction by looking at authors who chose to acknowledge the limitations of their own knowledge or resisted close identification with narrow versions of expert identity. A final chapter by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd offers a comparative account of scientific authority and expertise in ancient Chinese, Indian and Mesopotamian culture.