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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
Li Shizhen, Bencao gangmu (1578): donkey milk in the great Chinese materia medica
The Bencao gangmu, completed in 1578 by the physician Li Shizhen, devotes a subsection of its own to donkey milk, describing it as sweet, cold and laxative. The work also records that donkey milk cannot be made into soured milk.
- Author
- Li Shizhen (1518–1593)
- Work
- Bencao gangmu (本草綱目, “Systematic Materia Medica”), 52 chapters; quoted after the Siku quanshu copy, checked against the Jinling first printing
- Passage
- Chapter 50 (animals, domestic animals), entry “Donkey” (驢), subsection “Milk” (乳); plus the entry “Soured milk” (酪), section of explanations
- Time & place
- completed 1578; first printed in Jinling (preface 1590) · China (Qizhou, Hubei province; printed in Jinling/Nanjing)
- Type of source
- Materia medica
In the original words
What the original says
乳氣味甘冷利無毒〈思邈曰酸寒〉
Milk [of the she-ass]. Flavour and nature: sweet, cold, “flowing” (laxative), non-toxic. [Note:] Sun Simiao says: sour, cold.
小兒熱急黄多服使利〈唐本〉療大熱止消渴〈孫思邈〉
[Uses according to the quoted sources:] for heat and acute jaundice in children; taken in quantity it purges (Tang materia medica). Treats great heat and stops “wasting-thirst” (Sun Simiao).
驢乳尤冷不堪作酪也
Donkey milk is especially cold and is not fit for making soured milk (lao).
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
A look at the original
What the passage looks like
Double page from chapter 50 of the Jinling first edition of the Bencao gangmu (preface 1590); on the right the subsection “Milk” (乳) in the entry “Donkey”.
The page comes from a freely accessible digitised copy. Click to open the passage at the library.
National Diet Library (Tokio), via Wikimedia Commons; gemeinfrei
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
Li Shizhen worked on his materia medica for almost three decades and completed it in 1578; it was printed only shortly before or after his death, in Jinling, today’s Nanjing. Its 52 chapters describe some 1,900 drugs from plants, animals and minerals and are regarded as the high point of the Chinese materia medica tradition.
Each entry follows a fixed scheme: names, explanations, then for each part of the animal or plant its flavour and nature, indications and recipes. Li Shizhen almost always quotes older works and names them, such as the Tang materia medica of 659 or the physician Sun Simiao. The animal chapters 50 and 51 begin with the domestic animals; the donkey comes after cattle and horse.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
In the entry “Donkey”, Li Shizhen deals in turn with meat, fat, marrow, blood, milk, hide, hair and other parts. For the milk he gives the qualities sweet, cold and “flowing”, that is laxative, and non-toxic; Sun Simiao, by contrast, had described it as sour and cold.
The indications come from several older sources: heat and acute jaundice in children, great heat, “wasting-thirst”, acute convulsions, dysentery and fits in children and, drunk hot, heart pain. Recipes follow, among them mixtures of donkey and pig milk for children. Donkey milk is not a substitute for breast milk or infant formula; infant feeding belongs in medical hands.
A practical observation appears in the entry “Soured milk”: there Li Shizhen quotes the Tang scholar Su Gong, according to whom the milk of, among others, cattle, sheep, water buffalo and horses can be made into soured milk, whereas donkey milk is especially cold and unsuitable for it.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Timeline
Where this source stands in the history of donkey milk
Each dot is a source from our knowledge archive – from Greek antiquity to the present day.
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
The Bencao gangmu is the most influential pre-modern materia medica of China. We quote the clearly legible 18th-century Siku quanshu copy and have checked the passage against the scan of the Jinling first printing, which has the same text.
Quotations from older authors
Most statements on donkey milk are taken by Li Shizhen from works of the 7th to 10th centuries, with the source named in brackets each time. Terms such as “cold” or “flowing” belong to the Chinese doctrine of drug natures and do not refer to temperature.
Today’s assessment
The indications belong to medical history and are not health claims valid today. The references to children are historical; donkey milk is not a substitute for breast milk or infant formula, infant feeding belongs in medical hands.
Our assessment
The passage shows that donkey milk had a firm place not only in European and Arabic medicine but also in Chinese pharmacology. Especially vivid is the practical note that it cannot be made into soured milk.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourceLi Shizhen, Bencao gangmu, chapter 50 (part 2) after the Siku quanshu copy (18th century), full text on Wikisource; the entries “Donkey” (驢) and “Soured milk” (酪) are on this page
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AC%E8%8D%89%E7%B6%B1%E7%9B%AE_(%E5%9B%9B%E5%BA%AB%E5%85%A8%E6%9B%B8%E6%9C%AC)/%E5%8D%B750%E4%B8%8B - Original printJinling first edition of the Bencao gangmu (preface 1590), copy of the National Diet Library, Tokyo, fascicle 26 (chapter 50), double page 53 with the subsection “Milk” in the entry “Donkey” (Wikimedia Commons)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:NDL1286751_%E6%9C%AC%E8%8D%89%E7%B6%B1%E7%9B%AE.%E7%AC%AC%EF%BC%92%EF%BC%96%E5%86%8A%EF%BC%88%E7%AC%AC%EF%BC%95%EF%BC%90%E5%B7%BB%EF%BC%89.pdf&page=53 - SupplementaryAnother Wikisource version of the same chapter (section 獸之一, entry 驢) without stated base text; for comparison, contains transcription errors
https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AC%E8%8D%89%E7%B6%B1%E7%9B%AE/%E7%8D%B8%E4%B9%8B%E4%B8%80
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