Library

The essence of medicine lies first in pulse diagnosis. If the pulse signs are not authentic and accurate, one cannot distinguish between deficiency and excess, leading to the reckless application of purgative or tonifying methods, which rarely fails to shorten a person's lifespan. Secondly, it is essential to understand the properties of medicinal substances. For instance, if a disease resides in a specific meridian (a pathway for Qi and blood), specific herbs should be used; or there may be cases where pathology in one meridian extends to affect others. Therefore, principles such as "tonifying the mother and draining the child" (based on the Five Elements generating cycle, tonifying the source organ to nourish the affected organ, or draining the affected organ to relieve the source), supporting weakness, and suppressing excess, have various applications, and their indications are not fixed. Unless one possesses broad knowledge and can analyze subtleties and penetrate profound mysteries, treatment responses will be sluggish, or worse, fail to eliminate pathogens while damaging healthy Qi. As ancient sages said: "Using medicine is like using troops"; indeed, one must be extremely cautious.

Throughout history, hundreds of authors have written materia medica texts. Among them, none are more exquisite and detailed than Li Shizhen's *Bencao Gangmu* (Compendium of Materia Medica). Its research is extensive, its instructions comprehensive and clear, reflecting a sincere heart to benefit humanity. However, its volumes are vast and cumbersome, making it difficult to exhaustively study in a short time, and inconvenient to carry and consult during travel by boat or carriage. Although it is well-prepared, it lacks conciseness. Other works such as *Zhuzhi*, *Zhangzhi*, and *Yaoxing Gefu* are merely intended to facilitate recitation for beginners; while concise, they lack comprehensiveness. Recent works like *Bencao Mengquan* (Materia Medica Primer) and *Bencao Jingshu* (Elucidation of the Classic of Materia Medica) are regarded as good editions by the world. *Bencao Mengquan* categorizes herbs with annotations that contain profound insights, but its text is constrained by parallelism, its language overly ornate, and it still has many omissions. *Bencao Jingshu* elucidates the principles of therapeutic actions, discusses the interplay in prescription formulation, and points out errors to investigate faults, which can be considered perfect. However, it neglects detailed discussions on geographical origins (Dao-di herbs), preparation methods, and authentication of authenticity; some explanations are occasionally forced, and common herbs are often deleted, representing a lapse in even a thousand considerations.

I am not a professional physician, but I enjoy reading these books. In my spare time, I specifically reviewed various materia medica texts, distilling them from the complex to the simple, selecting four hundred applicable substances, and compiling them into a small volume. For each herb, specifying which meridian it enters and which diseases it treats, I clarify the reasons why its flavor, nature, shape, and color enable it to treat those conditions. Occasionally, I include ancient wisdom regarding mutual aversion and incompatibility, mutual restraint and supplementation, and the profound implications of medication. The geographical origin, processing methods, and aversions/incompatibilities are appended at the end. The "Ten Categories" (Xuan, Tong, Bu, Xie - Dispersing, Unblocking, Tonifying, Draining) are placed at the forefront to highlight efficacy while also clarifying potential drawbacks, allowing readers to understand clearly upon opening the book, thereby hopefully preventing misuse. By removing redundancy, it achieves completeness; by removing complexity, it achieves conciseness. Intelligent individuals, through this, can delve further into the subject, and the subtleties of medicine can be largely understood. Titled *Bencao Bei Yao* (Essential Requirements of Materia Medica), it is offered for correction by experts.

Wang Ang of Xiuning, An, inscribed at Yanxi Hall.