Dog Saliva, a Prolapsed Anus, and Wild Women
aka "Why the Classics are Fun"
Inspired by a footnote on a recent post of Rachelle’s Lab titled “From ginseng to dog poo” there was a reference to dog poo as a medicinal in the Ben Cao Gang Mu, so I naturally looked further into it, I had a lot of free time this week recovering from a recent surgery (post about that coming soon).
I never really looked at substances that would be considered passé. As a practitioner, we use common herbs and minerals, not many animal products, and the Western palate wouldn’t be amenable to many of the things the ancients were ingesting. The worst we commonly use is Wu Ling Zhi (五灵脂 - Faeces Trogopterori), flying squirrel feces.
So I grabbed Volume IX of the Ben Cao Gang Mu1, translated and annotated by Paul Unschuld, and began exploring.
My first task: let’s look up Man’s best friend. Leaving modern cultural views behind, we find that all parts imaginable are useful in medicine.
Did you know that dog saliva is good from choking on bones, prolapsed rectums, and having inadvertently swallowed a leech, according to Li Shizhen, with this important recipe with this herbal formula: “Prolapsed large intestine from the rectum. Smear dog saliva on it, and it will move up again”1(p429)
大腸 脫肛， 狗涎抹也，自上也。扶科精方1(p429)
So, my mind immediately conjures up some amusing pictures. Clearly, I went right to DALL-E to see what AI would generate for me. First, it yelled at me about the sensitivities of medical conditions and refused to draw anything (AI making decisions on what is morally correct is going to become a real issue in our future), so I modified the request and got this beautiful picture which is perfect for this post.
But back to task, dog poo, it says of dog feces “Those of white dogs are good, The qi and flavor Hot. Slightly poisonous. Dan Fang Jing Yuan: White dog excrements serve to [generate silver] by boiling them with copper”1(p440)
床。白狗者良 。【氣味】熱，有小毒。丹房鑑源云：白狗糞煮銅。1(p440)
Now, I’m not sure where the translation of “generate silver” is inserted, to me it seems like it says it should be boiled in copper, but who am I to disagree with Unschuld’s translations, I question my ability at my native tongue let alone Classical Chinese. Perhaps there is more regarding this found in the Dan Fang Jing Yuan (“Mirror origin from alchemical processes”2)
Additionally, for “Cholera in children, soak a ball of feces of a white dog in water, wring this to obtain a juice, and inject it.”1(p441) Yum, I thought that’s how you get Cholera.
小兒霍亂卒起者。用白狗屎一丸，絞汁服之。1(p441)
Having a heart attack? Dog Poo to the rescue: “Pain in the heart bringing one close to death, fry dog feces, grind them into powder, and ingest this with wine. Divinely effective.” “Divinely effective” indeed… that pesky medical-industrial complex has been keeping the cure from us all along.
心痛欲死。狗屎炒研，酒服二錢，神效。
It continues on about irregular menstruation, lumps in the abdomen, poison, malaria, and painful obstruction syndrome, a panacea for many diseases apparently.
While I do make some jokes from a cultural and modern perspective, there is a chance that there is medicinal value to dog feces, I’m just not ready to prescribe it in the current day.
I know, “What about cat poo?” you might ask.
Cat excrements are used for alternating cold and heat sensations with demon attachment illnesses and smallpox sores (when the poo is processed prior) 1(p805). Apparently even demons don’t want to be attached to someone eating cat poo, who knew?
【主治】痘瘡倒陷不發，瘰癧潰爛，惡瘡蠱疰，蠍螫鼠咬。時珍。疳靨有無價散，見人類。燒灰水服，治寒熱鬼瘧，發無期度者，極驗。蜀本草。1(p805)
I was about done with my mental exercise when I came across an appendix titled “Wild Girls,” which, of course, got my attention.
Paraphrasing from Unschuld, Tang Meng in the Bo Wu Zhi and Zhou Mi in the Qi Dong Ye Yu state that there are wild girls with curly yellow hair and white appearance who are naked and barefooted and skilled at climbing mountains but dignified like old women, roam in groups without males. They wear a hide around their waste. They carry off males and ask to mate with them. Once, one of these wild girls was killed by a “strong man”; it protected its waste up until its death during the fight. When it was dissected (I checked the translation on this, yes, dissected, not examined), a seal of 1 cun square made of a jade-like stone with something like seal script written on it was discovered.
Li Shizhen tries to clarify this by saying that the description is reminiscent of orangutans, so maybe that’s what they are. The testes of male rats or mice have a design like seal script on them, as do the armpits of a bird called the 治鳥(zhi niao). So finding seal script on a wild woman is not that extraordinary and perhaps has a function no one knows about.
Wtf… I have so many questions.
野女。
唐蒙博物志云：日南有野女，群行覓夫。其狀白色，徧體無衣襦。周密齊東野語云：野婆出南丹州，黄髮椎髻，裸形跣足，儼然若一媪也。群雌無牡。上下山谷如飛猱。自腰已下有皮蓋膝，每遇男子必負去求合。當為健夫所殺，死以手護腰間。剖之得印方寸，瑩若蒼玉，有文類符篆也。【時珍曰】合此二說與前阮氏、羅氏之說觀之，則野女似即猩猩矣。又雄鼠卵有文如符篆，治烏腋下有鏡印，則野婆之印篆非異也。亦當有功用，但人未知耳。1(p921)
I have no clue what was going on, but I feel we are only getting half the story:
Why did he dissect the woman after killing her? Li Shizhen is trying to make sense of this by saying “Oh well, maybe it was horny orangutangs wearing clothing and jewlery and asking to mate; and rats testicles are similar to what was described so this could be anything”. I’m not buying his rationale.
I tried to look up what this was an appendix to, all I could find is a reference about “boiling wild women’s elbows” 煮眾野女肘3, at that point I figured I was done for the day.
If anyone can tell me more about these Wild Women, or if they want to give them my number, reach out!
References:
1. Li S. Ben Cao Gang Mu. Volume 9 = Ch. 47-52: Fowls, Domestic & Wild Animals, Human Substances. University of California Press; 2021:47-52.
2. Yoke HP. Danfang jianyuan (Mirror of Alchemical Processes—a Source Book) and Danfang jingyuan (Mirror of the Alchemical Laboratory). In: Explorations in Daoism. Routledge; 2007.
3. Sturgeon D. 本草綱目卷五十一上~卷五十一下 page 10 (Library) - Chinese Text Project. Accessed April 4, 2024. https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&res=5266