A Medical Book Included in the Quadripartite Library
The Si ku quan shu was an enormous imperial manuscript library copied from rare editions carefully selected by officials from all over the empire. Ji Yun and a large staff finished the compilation in 1787. The section on medicine contains a great many important treatises up to the time of compilation. This is one of the component books, with the curious title Half a Composition [literally, " gatha"] of a Fourfold Authenticator of Materia Medica (Ben cao sheng ya ban ji ). The title of the book (ca.16467) refers to the fact that half of an earlier draft had been lost in military action, and that the commentary is in four parts. This is the manuscript edition kept in the Wen Yuan Ge. (Collection of Library of China Academy of TCM.)