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(One treatise, six articles; twenty prescriptions)

The treatise states: There are thousands of types of Gu poison (Gu toxin), each varying significantly. Some patients pass fresh blood; some prefer to lie in dark rooms and avoid light; some exhibit abnormal mental states, alternating between anger and joy; some suffer from heavy limbs and soreness and pain throughout all joints; their appearances are so bizarre that they cannot be fully described. Some die three years after infection, while acute cases may result in death within one month or one hundred days. Upon death, the body often decomposes and exits through the nine orifices or from the flesh under the hypochondrium. Therefore, when going out, one should always carry realgar (Xionghuang), musk (Shexiang), Shendan (Divine Cinnabar Pill), and other major herbs for repelling evil spirits. This ensures that various Gu poisons, Cat Ghosts (Maogui), fox spirits, old object demons, and other malevolent entities will never dare to afflict humans. Those who practice health preservation must give this matter serious consideration. Folk medicine also employs moxibustion. If one has contracted Gu poison in the capital region and feels discomfort below the heart with tenderness upon pressure, apply large moxa cones for one hundred burns (zhuang) at the epigastric region; this method can also cure Cat Ghost disease. Additionally, apply three burns at the tip of the little toe of the foot. Typically, foreign substances will emerge. If contracted via wine, liquid resembling wine will discharge; if via rice, rice grains will discharge; if via meat and vegetables, remnants of meat and vegetables will discharge. The patient will then recover. This is highly effective, as these substances all exit through the moxibustion wounds.

Anyone suffering from Gu poison experiences severe colicky pain in the chest and abdomen, as if being bitten by something, or vomits and passes bloody stools resembling rotting flesh. If not treated immediately, the poison will erode the five Zang organs until death occurs upon their complete destruction. To verify Gu poisoning, have the patient spit into water. If the saliva sinks, it is Gu poison; if it floats, it is not.

If a person suffers from a chronic illness over many years, occasionally passing black stools like lacquer, which may be hard, loose, or slightly reddish, this indicates Gu poison.

If a person suddenly develops hematochezia (blood in stool) and treatment with antidiarrheal/hemostatic formulas exacerbates the condition severely, this is Zhong poison (a specific type of Gu). Any sudden onset of bloody dysentery, whether red or black, regardless of volume, is invariably caused by Gu poison. Incompetent physicians treating this solely with antidiarrheal drugs commit a grave error.

There are incompetent physicians in the world who, seeing patients with Gu distension characterized by generalized swelling and fullness but normal limbs and relatively unobstructed urination, treat them as Water Disease (Edema). They delay treatment by administering diuretic herbs for over fifty days, hoping for recovery, but the condition worsens day by day, leading to premature death. Such cases are numerous. Students of medicine must carefully study the intent of the prescriptions and apply them judiciously to ensure success without failure. Medical texts number in the thousands and cannot exhaustively explain all principles; thus, they cannot be fully detailed here.

When someone contracts Gu poison due to malicious sorcery performed by another, if medication reveals the name of the sorcerer, one should send someone to summon and remove the sorcerer. To ascertain the sorcerer's name, burn old drum skin to ash, take one Fangcun Bi (a traditional measure, approx. 2-3 grams) with water, and shortly thereafter, the patient will spontaneously call out the sorcerer's name. Informing the patient to let the sorcerer go results in recovery. Furthermore, some mix snake saliva into food or drink to create Gu poison, causing Jia disease (abdominal masses). This type of Gu poison takes years to cause death and requires specific treatments. This phenomenon exists among people in the mountainous regions of Jiangnan and should not be disregarded.