  Tao’s father and grandfather were experts in medicinal drugs, and he shared their interests in materia medica and medicine. Shortly after compiling the Zhen gao he wrote a major work of pharmacology: the Collected Commentaries to the Canonical Pharmacopoeia (Bencao jing jizhu 本草經集注), a commentary and re-edition of the Shen Nong bencao, a Han work of pharmacology attributed to Shen Nong, the legendary inventor of materia medica. Tao doubled the account of 365 drugs in the original and also rearranged the material (502–557), (Predagio 2013, 968–71; Robinet 1993; Strickman 1979).