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Musk (Shexiang, 麝香), with a pungent flavor and warm temperature, is non-toxic. It repels snakes and scorpions, eliminates roundworms, parasites, epilepsy, and *zhuzheng* (疰病, infectious diseases characterized by lingering symptoms), drives away evil spirits, wards off epidemic miasma, resolves distension, urgency, and fullness/stagnation, induces labor and causes abortion, opens orifices and unblocks passages, dispels trance-like states and fright, calms the heart and anchors the spirit, treats carbuncles and sores, erodes pus and expels blood stasis, vomits out wind-phlegm, awakens from nightmares, and when applied to the eyes, removes membranes and stops tearing. It is mostly used for external treatment, while internal use is rare.

Someone asked: Can Musk resolve injuries caused by consuming fruits? Is this true? The answer is: How can Musk resolve fruits? It can only kill insects in fruit trees. When one consumes too many fruits, there will inevitably be worms generated in the chest. Once worms are present, one will crave fruits; craving fruits leads to overeating them. Initially, eating them feels pleasant, but long-term consumption leads to chest stuffiness. In the past, people used Musk, and illnesses caused by eating fruits were cured, leading to the suspicion that Musk could digest fruits. Little did they know, this was actually the effect of killing insects. ([Commentary] Resolving the confusion of predecessors.)

Someone asked: Recently, physicians treating wind syndromes often use Musk to penetrate internally and externally, yet you do not discuss this. Is it incorrect to treat wind syndromes? The answer is: Wind diseases differ. Some invade the bones, some the skin and flesh, and some the zang-fu organs. One cannot indiscriminately use Musk, a drug with a penetrating and roaming nature. Generally, if wind invades the bone marrow, Musk is used as a last resort, allowing anti-pathogenic herbs to enter the bone marrow directly, expelling wind outward. This is the treatment for true stroke (*zhongfeng*, 中风). For other wind pathogens merely located outside the zang-fu organs and within the muscles, using Musk to guide wind into the bones would instead cause severe, incurable diseases. Moreover, since laypeople ignore contraindications and recklessly use Musk to treat pediatric acute and chronic convulsions, outcomes are often nine deaths for every one survival. Can one not be cautious?

Some doubt: If Musk cannot treat wind diseases, were the predecessors wrong to use it? The answer is: Predecessors used Musk to treat wind syndromes merely to borrow its aromatic, penetrating qi to guide herbs into the meridians and open closed orifices. Recent practitioners, unaware of the original intent behind the predecessors' formulas, use it indiscriminately regardless of whether orifices are closed or open. This results in guiding wind into the bones, preventing its expulsion, and creating wind syndromes where none existed, which is abhorrent.