Loading...
Chapter 33 of 33
神农本草经
Appendix: Twelve Entries from Wu's Materia Medica, Attached to the Shennong's Classic of the Materia Medica
Overall Paraphrase
This section comprises two appendices to the Shennong's Classic of the Materia Medica: the "Twelve Entries from Wu's Materia Medica" and the "Attached Notes on Assisting and Guiding Drugs."
The "Twelve Entries from Wu's Materia Medica" records twelve medicinals (though some entries may be missing):
The "Attached Notes on Assisting and Guiding Drugs" was compiled by Tang Shenwei, based on the mutual-assistance (xiangshi) records from the Shennong's Classic of the Materia Medica, cross-referenced with the Drug Pairings (Yaodui). It reveals that one drug may have two or three guiding adjuvants. The entire text is organized into three grades—upper, middle, and lower—across categories such as minerals/stones, herbal drugs, woody drugs, animals, insects/fish, fruits, vegetables, and grains, systematically listing each drug's shi (guiding adjuvant), e (counteracting/weakening), wei (restraining/detoxifying), and fan (incompatibility), e.g., glycyrrhiza antagonizes euphorbia kansui, ginseng antagonizes veratrum, etc. In total, 231 drugs with clear mutual guiding/restraining relationships are recorded; the remaining drugs have none listed.
Appended at the end are five seasonal drug-guiding relationships taken from the Drug Pairings, matching five seasons to five substances, five guides, and five indications:
The original collation notes state that these five entries are profound in meaning and beyond the deep inquiry of the common world. Although they cannot be casually applied, they represent the "foundational basis of rulership," and have therefore been retained.
The most significant academic value of this section lies in its systematic preservation of the original textual appearance of the seven-relationship drug pairing (七情配伍) theory. The "seven relationships" refer to seven ways drugs interact: single action (单行), mutual reinforcement (相须), mutual assistance (相使), mutual restraint (相畏), mutual antagonism (相恶), mutual incompatibility (相反), and mutual counteraction/counter-toxicity (相杀). This section focuses on the latter five:
This system reflects the ancients' empirical observation and inductive categorization of drug interactions, serving as the cornerstone of formula construction theory—the later "Eighteen Incompatibilities" (十八反) and "Nineteen Restraints" (十九畏) derive directly from this framework. 💡 Furthermore, the final five entries on "five seasons and five guides" reflect the projection of the correspondence between heaven and humanity (天人相应) into materia medica: a symbolic correspondence exists between the season when a drug sprouts and the body part it treats (spring governs the head, summer the abdomen, long summer the limbs, autumn the chest and back). This is not experiential pharmacology but rather theoretical speculation.
From a contemporary perspective, the pairing records in this section hold dual attributes:
Of value: Some "incompatibility" relationships have received preliminary corroboration from modern pharmacological research. For example, combining glycyrrhiza with euphorbia kansui has been experimentally shown to potentially enhance kansui's toxicity; combining ginseng with veratrum may produce antagonistic effects. This suggests that not all ancient pairing contraindications are devoid of empirical basis.
Of limited value: Numerous "antagonizing" and "restraining" relationships lack systematic verification by modern pharmacology. In particular, the "five seasons and five guides" section—mapping the Beginning of Spring to forty-five body sections, Beginning of Summer to seven, Summer Solstice to thirty-two, and Beginning of Autumn to twenty-four—constitutes a product of numerological-symbolic thinking (象数思维), correlating seasonal node numbers with body regions through a logical chain that modern science cannot substantiate. The original collation notes even admit these are "not to be applied." Additionally, some entries suffer from textual lacunae (e.g., the "bark of a thousand-year-old wall" entry), leaving their historical information incomplete.
This content is intended solely for scholarly study of ancient texts and must not be used as a basis for clinical medication.
Related Concepts: Seven-relationship pairing (single action, mutual reinforcement, mutual assistance, mutual restraint, mutual antagonism, mutual incompatibility, mutual lethality-countering); Eighteen Incompatibilities and Nineteen Restraints; guiding/adjuvant drugs (佐使药); formula construction (monarch-minister-adjuvant-guide); Wu Pu's Materia Medica (the "Wu's" in this text may refer to Wu Pu, disciple of Hua Tuo); Tang Shenwei's Classified Materia Medica from the Zhenglong Era (证类本草) (the direct source of the "Attached Notes on Assisting and Guiding Drugs"); the Master Lei's Drug Pairings (雷公药对); heaven-human correspondence.
Further Reading: Tao Hongjing's Collected Commentaries on the Materia Medica (本草经集注), "Preface" discussion of the seven relationships; the Plain Questions (素问)·Ultrasecret Treatise (至真要大论) on monarch-minister-adjuvant-guide composition; Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica (本草纲目), "Prefatory Examples" section on "mutual reinforcement, mutual assistance, co-use in differing combinations, mutual antagonism and incompatibility"; current Science of Chinese Materia Medica (中药学) textbooks, chapters on "Pairing" and "Medication Contraindications."
This content is based on classic traditional Chinese medical texts and is intended solely for the study of traditional culture and scholarly inquiry. It does not constitute any form of medical diagnosis, medication, or treatment advice. If you experience discomfort, please seek medical attention promptly.