Materia Medica for Disaster Relief came from the early Ming Dynasty, and there are many versions. There are 15 and 6 versions in China. The original book "Herbal Medicine for Disaster Relief" was published in Kaifeng in the fourth year of Yongle (AD 1406), but this edition has been lost. In the fourth year of Jiajing (A.D. 1525), Taiyuan, Shanxi Province was published for the second time, which is the oldest carved version popular today, and it is divided into four volumes.

In the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (AD 1555), Lu Dong, a native of Kaifeng Prefecture, republished the book according to the second edition, but mistakenly thought that it was written by his son Zhu Youdun (). Xu Guangqi once included this book in the famine relief part of his Complete Book of Agricultural Administration. Under the influence of this book, Wang Xilou's Wild Vegetable Cookbook, Zhou's Confucian Caobian and Baoshan's Wild Vegetables were published successively in Ming and Qing Dynasties, including ten books on famine relief. , and the content of "medicine for saving weeds" is widely quoted.

Extended data:

It is a flora which is mainly native plants and combined with food to save famine. This book is divided into two volumes. There are 4 14 species of plants, each with exquisite woodcut illustrations. Among them, there are 38 kinds of materia medica/kloc-0, and 276 kinds are added. According to edible parts, it is further divided into edible leaves, edible roots and edible fruits.

237 edible leaves, 6 1 edible fruits and 43 edible leaves and fruits. 28 edible roots, edible root leaves 16, 5 edible root fruits, 3 edible root bamboo shoots, 2 edible root flowers, 5 edible flowers, 5 edible flowers, 2 edible flower fruits and 2 edible leaf fruits. There are three kinds of edible stems, one kind of edible bamboo shoots and one kind of edible bamboo shoots.

Baidu encyclopedia-medicine to save weeds