Materia medica illustrations related to the regional names in Zhejiang province in Ben Cao Tu Jing

Abstract

Ben Cao Tu Jing had 38 materia medica illustrations related to the regional names in Zhejiang province. It was found that 30 of them were identified as being named after regional names in Zhejiang province, involving 20 families and 29 genera. One of the 38 materia medica illustrations was mineral medicine and seven of them were unverified. The twenty-five of these materia medica illustrations with regional names were found to be consistent with their names used today. Five of them came from similar names in Zhejiang province in the Northern Song Dynasty, another five of the 25 names were known with the names but not entity for the lack of full descriptions and drawings. It was found that the drawing and the text of "Ming Zhou Huang Yao" and "Qin Zhou Hong Yao" in Ben Cao Tu Jing were reversed. By comparing the materia medica illustrations related to regional names in Da Guan Ben Cao by Liu Jia and Zheng He Ben Cao by Zhang Huicun, the name and the illustration of "Jin Zhou Bei Mu" in Zheng He Ben Cao by Zhang Huicun was more believable than "Yue Zhou Bei Mu" in Da Guan Ben Cao by Liu Jia. "Tai Zhou Wu Yao" and "Zhe Ba Wei", as genuine medicinal materials in Zhejiang, can be traced back to the illustrations of "Tai Zhou Wu Yao", "Yue Zhou Bai Zhu", "Mu Zhou Mai Dong", "Wen Zhou Peng 'e Shu", "Yue Zhou Bei Mu" and "Tian Tai Wu Yao" in Ben Cao Tu Jing. These findings provided text and drawing literature of herbs in the Song Dynasty for the research of genuine medicinal materials and their characteristics in Zhejiang province. They also showed that the utilization and development of the resources of traditional Chinese medicine in Zhejiang in the Northern Song Dynasty mainly focused on the coastal areas.