Abstract
As many ancient nations around the world, the Chinese nation started paying attention to identifying living things, observing and studying the laws of their distribution, growth and development as well as reproduction in an early time. Meanwhile, they named and classified living things according to their various features for achieving the goal of maintaining their own survival and health care as well as creating sound living environment by making good use of living things. During the process of social development, their understanding of living things continuously deepened. They not only effectively chose those species which were appropriate to be used as food, fiber, medicine, or ornament for maintaining their own survival and development so as to avoid unnecessary harm, but created their own brilliant culture on this basis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Observation of biotemperature was an important part of it.
- 2.
(Qing) Guo Bocang Min Chan Lu Yi, Author’s Preface, Edition of Guangxu Bing Xu.
- 3.
In ancient times, many doctors were such intellectuals who failed in becoming an official, including Li Shizhen. Many of them were influenced by the thought of becoming an excellent doctor if failing in being an outstanding official held by traditional Confucians.
- 4.
Feng Youlan. A Brief History of Chinese Philosophy [M]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 1996:158.
- 5.
Later it became one of the Confucian classics, too.
- 6.
Wei Wang Hua Mu Zhi included in Shuo Fu was obvious a book cobbled together by post-Tang people, and It is absolutely not the original book.
- 7.
[1],pp 76–178.
- 8.
The term “studying the nature of things” was originated from The Great Learning, and the original text was “acquiring kowledge by means of studying the nature of things, and only after understanding and studying things can we acquire the knowledge.”
- 9.
The fifth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, he was granted a title of King Zhou and his feoff was in Kaifeng.
- 10.
Vavilov(1887–1943), former professor of Moscow State University, former director of Soviet Applied Plant and New Crop Research Institute, former president of Soviet Agriculture College. He traveled to more than 50 countries to find new plant species and discuss the distribution and origin of cultivated plants in his whole life. He collected a large number of crop species, which laid solid foundation for the later establishment of modern plant gene banks in Soviet Union.
- 11.
Besides China, the rest of the centers are India–Malaysia, Central Asia, Small Asia, Mediterranean, Ethiopia, South America-Middle America and South America.
- 12.
Vavilov, N.I., 1949/50, The Origin, Variation, Immunity and Breeding of Cultivated Plants, Chronica Botanica 13, Nos. pp. 1–6. Quoted from: Zhang Guangzhi, China’s Bronze Age [M]. Beijing: The Joint Publishing Company Ltd., 1999: 334.
- 13.
Marijuana is mainly extracted from multi-branch hemp growing in India.
- 14.
Yan Wenming. 2000. The Origin and Civilization of Chinese Agriculture. Beijing: Science Press. p. 8.
- 15.
E. Bretscheider, who has studied the transport history of China and the Western countries, holds that all the Chinese vegetables, fruits and economic plants which have “hu” in their names, must be introduced from Central Asia. Bretscheider’s idea has been immediately retorted by Berthold Laufer, an American anthropologist, who points out the overgeneralization problem made by Bretscheider.
- 16.
China Agriculture Yearbook [M]. Ministry of Agriculture. Beijing: China Agriculture Press. 1997:7.
- 17.
Hawks, E. 1969, Pioneers of Plant study, New York. p. 30.
- 18.
[US]Willam H. Ukers, All About Tea (1935) [M]. tr. Tea Research Society of China. Beijing: Tea Research Society of China, 1949:316.
- 19.
Every box weighs about 20 kg.
- 20.
In 1990, about 200 hundred tons of tea was exported from China, and export earnings of tea amounted to 42 million American dollars and accounted for approximately 4.1 % of total export of Chinese agricultural products, and 0.7 % of total export.
- 21.
Yu Dejun. Contributions of Chinese Plants to World Horticulture [J]. Bulletin of Botany, 1985.
References
Weiying X (1982) Mao Shi Cao Mu Niao Shou Chong Yu Shu—Lu Ji. Study of the History of Science 1
Guihuan L, Zichun W (2005) Science and civilisation in China biology. Science press, Beijing
Needham J et al (1986) Science and civilisation in China, vol 6. In: Biology and biological technology, part 1 Botany. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1986
Sarton G (1948) Introduction to the history of science, vol III. New York
Vavilov NI (1987) Origin and geography of cultivated plants (translated by D. Love). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992
Laufer B (1919) Sino-Iranica. Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in Ancient Iran. Field Museum of Natural History
Guihuan L (1994) Development of dietary culture in China: a perspective from changes in plant food in history. In: Foundation of Chinese Dietary Culture (ed) Proceedings of the 3rd symposium on Chinese dietary culture, pp 131–148
Guihuan L (2003) Early Plant domestication and ancient Chinese civilization. Agric Archaeol 1
Guihuan Luo (2005) History of western botanical and zoological studies in China. Shandong Education Press, Jinan
[Switzerland] de Condolle (1950) Origin of cultivated plants. Cai Xitao, Yu Dejun tr. The Commercial Press, Beijing
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, Shanghai and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Luo, G. (2015). Biology. In: Lu, Y. (eds) A History of Chinese Science and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44257-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44257-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44256-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44257-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawHistory (R0)