The Pen ts’ao( 本草綱目)is a Chinese herbology volume written by Li Shizhen during the Ming dynasty;This book illustrated all the plants, animals, minerals, and other items that were believed to have medicinal properties. The text consists of 1,892 entries, each entry with its own name called a gang. The mu in the title refers to the synonyms of each name. The book has been translated into many different languages, and remains as the premier reference work for herbal medicine.
WOODBLOCK PRINTING
The Pen ts’aois is one of the first few books aprinted with woodblock. I was interested to find that the Chinese Woodblock printing technique. The woodblock print was created by carving away any parts of the woodblock that were not part of the text or image. The raised surface was inked and pressed firmly and evenly onto paper.
The advantage of using woodblock printing is that its great at mass production(at that point of time) and cost efficient, with the invention of paper was a lot cheaper than vellum and also wood is cheaper than metal. However the disadvantages are firstly its time consuming, it can take a long time to carve, hours or even days, secondly, it is Difficult to carve small details.
Overall, it was very interesting to see the revolution of printing press, and little did I know that the first printing press was invented was originated in China during the first millennium A.D. The worldwide spread of the printing press meant greater distribution of informations and knowledges.
After some research, I found out that Jay chou produced a song call 本草綱目 Chinese Herbal Manual.
Enjoy~
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compendium_of_Materia_Medica
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/printing-press