'The Concise Pharmacopeia': An abridged translation with a systematic method for rendering Chinese medical terms.

摘要

Chinese pharmaceutics, the major part of Chinese medicine, is an extensive, systematized body of knowledge that has developed over more than two millenia. Only recently has interest in this begun to develop in the West, however, and few reliable translations of Chinese medical texts of any kind exist in any European language. One of the major barriers to accurate translation has previously been the lack of understanding of the thousands of confusing, unusual technical terms used in Chinese medicine. Based on the hypothesis that Chinese medical terminology falls into the same category, and therefore follows basically the same rules, as Western technical languages, and using a qualitative research technique based on the triangulation method common in social sciences to determine word meanings, this dissertation translates the major portions of one of the most popular and useful Qing dynasty works on the Chinese materia medica, the Bencao Beiyao (translated as "Concise Pharmacopeia"), written by Wang Ang and first published in 1683, as an example of this hypothesis and the utilization of this methodology. Altogether, one hundred thirty-six animal, mineral, and plant substances are examined, with the author's original commentaries and additional explanatory footnotes where necessary. The translation is preceded by a lengthy introduction outlining the history of Chinese pharmacology and the major contributions thereto, an examination of the problems of translating literary Chinese, and an exposition of the hypothesis and methods used in rendering this work into English, with numerous examples. The translation is followed by three appendices: (I) Most frequently encountered Chinese medical terms; (II) Works cited in the text; and (III) References. This is, to date, the first attempt ever made to seriously translate a classical Chinese pharmacopeial work into English.