History of Herbs :: China
“For every ill, there is a corresponding natural remedy.”
Legends regarding pharmacology (the science of the effects of drugs on a living organism) in China center around
Shen-nung, “the divine farmer” turned emperor-sage who lived over 5500 years ago. He tested herbs and treatments on himself
and recorded his findings for what would become the Pen-Ts’ao Ching, (The Classic of Herbs) a compendium of Chinese herbal
treatments. Shen-nung died because of an overdose of an herb that proved to be poisonous, but other practitioners added to
his work.
Most authorities agree that the compendium was committed to paper circa 100 CE during the Han Dynasty, by which time it contained over 235 prescriptions using dozens of herbs. Chinese herbalists continued to discover new treatment and subsequent emperors ordered regular updates to Shen-nung’s herbal. In its final published version in 1597 CE, the original work had grown into a 52-volume set, containing 8,160 prescriptions prepared from 1,871 substances mostly of plant origin, entitled Pen-Ts’ao Kung Mu (The Catalog of Medicinal Herbs).
This work, credited to Li Shih-Chen, is still studied by students of Chinese herbalism today, though they have
simplified the practice. Three hundred herbs are used in modern Chinese herbalism, including ginseng, burdock, hawthorn,
dandelion and ginger. They are dispensed as decoctions, powders, pills, ointments, and suppositories and work in conjunction
with the practice of acupuncture.
Beginning in the mid 1800’s, European colonialists brought traditional Western medicine to China and dismissed thousands of years of herbal study as superstition. Not surprisingly, the Chinese distrusted the new procedures and it was not until the 1950s that Western and Eastern medical practitioners began working side by side. Despite their initial opposition to each other, Western medicine owes much to the research China’s herbalists. Star anise, camphor, ephedra, monkshood and aconitine, the alkaloid resulting from monkshood, were all introduced to modern medicine by the Chinese, as were the minerals arsenic, iron, mercury and sulfur.
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