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Pungent, warm. It must be made from pine soot and bark juice to be suitable for medicinal use; ink made from lampblack (oil soot), tung oil soot, or petroleum soot, although black and shiny, is harmful and should not be used. Ink with finer particles from older years is preferred; coarse ones should not be used.

Yuan Jiao stated: For all hemorrhagic disorders where blood overflows and acts recklessly, one must use ink made by burning pine soot. The medium-to-low grade products sold in the market are all of this type. If it is made from oil soot...

Take disordered hair combed from young, vigorous, and disease-free men and women. Wash off the grease thoroughly with warm water and soap, then rinse with clear water to remove the soap scent. Dry it, place it in a jar, and grind it while cold for use.

Hair from prepubescent boys is best; select those that are white as snow for use.

There is a foreign medicine called "Mi Yi Fang La" (Mummy), coming from the Western Regions. Besides resolving blood stasis and treating traumatic injuries, it has few other uses. Among the powerful people there, upon death, bodies are embalmed in stone coffins and still heavily treated with various perfumed liquids as medicine, referred to as "Meng". Wrapped in cotton cloth and stored carefully in triple-layered wooden chests, is this not due to the power of fragrant liquids preserving the corpse? Removing the flesh and rubbing it in the palm makes it moist and soft.

"Mu Nai Yi Fang" (Mummy) is likely this substance. Tao Hongjing once said he was willing to sacrifice his body to save the world, bathing himself and eating honey, which aligns with what is said today... to deeply investigate its reality. There are also forged items; every year, foreign merchants bring them, which are actually boiled down human flesh along with horse and beef until charred, mixed with...

The "Zhi Han" collected in Chen Cangqi's *Bencao* during the Tang Dynasty is of this category. Its description states: "Zhi Han" comes from the Western Regions, prepared by decocting Tamarisk (Cheng Liu), Frankincense (Ru Xiang), Pine Resin (Song Lei), Licorice Root (Gan Cao), Rehmannia Root (Di Huang), and hot blood together...

If a child loses a foot, using [human flesh]...

Is this acceptable? How utterly inhumane! The functions of these two substances are quite similar. "La" can rescue crises and revive the dead; often, people take or apply it. For the weak and emaciated, it serves the purpose of prolonging life. Could it really be about humans eating humans? The *Shennong Bencao Jing* lists only hair as a medicinal material derived from the human body.

Calling blood salty and referring to it as medicine violates morality and extinguishes reason more severely than anything else. Now, taking parts from the human body that have been adopted by medical prescriptions without causing harm... such things can be omitted.