Li Shizhen publishes the Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica) in 1596, the fruit of 27 years of research, field travel, and review of more than 800 earlier sources. The 52-volume work catalogues 1,892 medicinal substances (1,094 plant, 444 animal, 275 mineral) with 11,096 prescriptions and 1,160 illustrations. It introduces a taxonomy by properties and habitat anticipating modern criteria of natural classification. It describes distillation, metal amalgamation, and smallpox inoculation. It circulated in Japan from the start of the Edo period (17th century) and influenced the development of Japanese pharmacology and botany. Partially translated into Japanese, Russian, French, and German between the 17th and 19th centuries. Darwin cites it in On the Origin of Species as an example of documented artificial selection.