ABSTRACT
The use of medicinal plants in China began more than 3000 years ago. The Book of Poetry (Shi Jing), China’s ancient poem collection (ca. 3000 BC), records more than 50 species of medicinal plants (T. P. Zhu et al. 2007). The Philosophers of Huainan (Huai Nan Zi), an ancient book published in the early Western Han Dynasty (ca. 200 BC), records that “the Divine Husbandman [shennong] tasted hundreds of herbs and met 70 toxicities within a day.” Ancient medical books excavated in 1973 from tombs of the Western Han Dynasty at Mawangdui list 169 herbal substances (Ma 1986).
