Compendium of Materia Medica: Avian Section

Compendium of Materia Medica · Avian Section: A Vernacular Study

Note: The following content is a study and interpretive translation of classical texts, intended solely to aid understanding of ancient Chinese medicinal thinking. It does not constitute any modern medicinal or therapeutic advice.

Overall Paraphrase

The Avian Section of the Compendium of Materia Medica catalogs cranes, pelicans, geese, ducks, wild ducks, chickens, pheasants, pigeons, sparrows, bats, the flying squirrel (hánhàochóng), turtledoves, crows, magpies, eagles, and ospreys. Ancient scholars believed that since birds can fly, their qi and blood, muscles, fat, eggs, bile, and feces—each possessing different natures and flavors—have different applications. Overall, the avian medicinals can be broadly categorized as follows:

• Tonics for deficiency: Crane blood, black-boned chicken, black hen, yellow hen, sparrow meat, turtledove meat, etc., commonly used for consumptive fatigue, chronic illness with debility, postpartum deficiency, and weakened organs in the elderly.
• Wind-dispelling and channel-unblocking agents: White crane blood dispels wind and benefits the lungs; pelican fat oil treats wind-type bi syndrome (painful obstruction) and unblocks channels; white goose oil moistens the skin and resolves abscesses; eagle droppings are applied externally to remove scars.
• Heat-clearing and moisture-moistening agents: Goose bile, duck fat, and duck meat are cool to cold in nature, often used for heat toxins, abscesses and swellings, dry skin, and edema.
• Digestion-promoting, astringent, and anti-enuretic agents: Chicken gizzard lining (jī nèi jīn), chicken liver, dried chicken feces (jī shǐ bái), pigeon droppings, sparrow droppings, and flying squirrel feces (wǔ líng zhī) were used by the ancients for food stagnation, enuresis, dysentery, abnormal vaginal discharge, and blood stasis pain.
• Vision-clarifying and nebula-removing agents: Crane brain, sparrow eggs, sparrow droppings, bat droppings (yè míng shā), etc., are associated with records concerning blurred vision, ocular opacities, and night blindness.

Key points for specific birds are as follows:

🕊️ Crane

White crane blood is neutral in nature. The ancients believed it could strengthen qi and physical strength, treat deficiency and fatigue, dispel wind, and benefit the lungs. Crane brain combined with aconite root (tiān xióng) and scallion seeds was said to improve vision. Crane eggs were thought to "preventively resolve smallpox toxins." These are ancient empirical claims and must not be taken as modern prophylactic or therapeutic measures.

🦆 Pelican

Pelican fat oil is salty, warm, and slippery. The ancients primarily applied it externally to coat abscesses and swelling and to treat wind-type bi syndrome, claiming it could "penetrate the channels and unblock deafness." This mainly reflects external application and channel-unblocking approaches.

🦢 Goose

White goose oil is sweet and slightly cold. Externally, it was used to moisturize the skin, resolve abscesses, and treat chapped hands and feet. Goose bile is bitter and cold, applied topically for heat toxins and early-stage hemorrhoids. Goose applications are mostly external.

🦆 Duck (Domestic)

Duck fat is sweet and greatly cold. The ancients used it for qi deficiency, alternating chills and fever, and edema, as well as mixing with powdered Pinellia ternata (bàn xià) for external application when scrofula ulcerated and discharged fluid. Duck meat is sweet and cold. The ancient formula "White Phoenix Paste" (bái fèng gāo) used a black-billed white duck with jujubes, Shen Ling Ping Wei Powder (shēn líng píng wèi sàn), and aged rice wine, slowly simmered, for chronic deficiency with fever, expectoration of phlegm, and coughing of blood. This reflects the approach of "sweet and cold to moisten dryness; flesh and blood to tonify deficiency."

🦆 Wild Duck

Wild duck meat is sweet and cool. The ancients believed it could tonify the middle and boost qi, settle the stomach, and promote digestion. It was also said that those with lingering minor heat sores on the body for years could eat wild duck in abundance for improvement.

🐔 Chicken

The chicken occupies the most extensive content within the Avian Section, described by body part:

• White rooster meat: Sweet, slightly warm. The ancients used it for mania and derangement, sudden heart pain, red-and-white dysentery, sudden cough, and edema due to water qi, usually stewed in soups, porridges, or wontons with other medicinals.
• Black rooster meat: Sweet, slightly warm. Commonly used for nausea and vomiting of food (gastric reflux), and kidney deficiency with deafness.
• Black hen meat: Used for post-stroke stiff tongue with inability to speak, non-rotating eyeballs, and deficiency-consumption with fatigue manifesting as night sweats, wheezing, palpitations, and weak stomach, often steamed with Rehmannia (dì huáng) and maltose (yí táng), reflecting the approach of nourishing yin and blood.
• Yellow hen meat: Sweet, nontoxic. Used for water accumulation with edema, epidemic jaundice, spleen deficiency with slippery dysentery, and spleen-stomach weakness with emaciation.
• Black-boned chicken: Sweet, neutral. Combined with ginkgo nuts, lotus seeds, and black pepper, etc., it was used for red-and-white vaginal discharge, seminal emission with turbid urine, and spleen deficiency with slippery diarrhea. This is the prototype of the later "Wu Ji Bai Feng" pill family of formulas.
• Chicken blood, chicken liver, chicken gallbladder, crop, gizzard lining, dried chicken feces, chicken eggs, egg white, egg yolk, and eggshell: Each has its own records.
  • Jī nèi jīn (chicken gizzard lining) was widely used for enuresis, dribbling urination, nausea and vomiting of food, lockjaw-type dysentery, throat obstruction and tonsillitis, mouth sores, and leg ulcers, embodying the principles of "promoting digestion and eliminating stagnation, astringing essence and stopping enuresis."
  • Jī shǐ bái (dried chicken feces) was used for abdominal distension with palpitation, edema, jaundice, urinary stones, stroke, throat obstruction, toothache, nosebleeds, breast abscesses, and scrofula—an example of ancient animal feces used as medicine.
  • Chicken eggs and their various components were used for febrile diseases with restlessness, yellowing of the body, generalized facial and body swelling, excessive postpartum bleeding, vaginal discharge, fever, dysentery, roundworms, burns and scalds, scalp sores, and scars, both internally and externally.

🦚 Pheasant (Wild)

Pheasant meat is sour and slightly cold. It was used for spleen deficiency with diarrhea, wasting-thirst with excessive drinking, frequent urination, and abdominal distension, usually combined with warming-the-middle and qi-regulating medicinals.

🕊️ Pigeon

White pigeon meat is salty and neutral. The ancients believed it could neutralize medicinal toxins and treat malignant sores, scabies and ringworm, and vitiligo. Pigeon droppings, also called "Zuǒ Pán Lóng," were used for vaginal discharge with pus drainage, roundworms, scrofula, and itchy scalp with sores, mostly applied externally or prepared into pills and powders.

🐦 Sparrow

Sparrow eggs and meat were used for impotence, vaginal discharge, difficult urination, weakened organs in the elderly, hernia, dysentery, and internal and external ocular opacities. Male sparrow droppings, also called "Bái Dīng Xiāng," were used for eye opacities, infantile lockjaw, boils, and throat obstruction. Traditional belief held that the sparrow is yang in nature and can support kidney yang.

🦇 Bat

Bats and their droppings, called "Yè Míng Shā" (night-shining sand), were used medicinally. Bats were used for upper-jiao heat, chronic cough, chronic malaria, infantile convulsions, and scrofula. Yè Míng Shā was used for internal and external ocular opacities, green wind blindness, night blindness, malaria, cough, purulent ear discharge, and draining abscesses. From a modern public health perspective, capturing or consuming bats on one's own is not advised.

🐿️ Flying Squirrel (Hánhàochóng)

Its droppings are known as "Wǔ Líng Zhī," sweet and warm. Classic formulas such as "Shī Xiào Sǎn" were used for epigastric and abdominal pain, postpartum lochiostasis, blood stasis, irregular menstruation, uterine hemorrhage, hematemesis, and traumatic injuries, embodying the therapeutic approach of activating blood and resolving stasis, dispersing lumps, and arresting pain.

🕊️ Turtledove

Turtledove meat is sweet and neutral. It was used to improve vision and boost qi, and was said to prevent choking.

🐦 Crow

Crow meat is sour, astringent, and neutral. It was used for the five types of劳累 and seven types of impairment, latent wind disorders, obstructed menstruation, accumulated blood that fails to disperse, and consumptive diseases, usually combined with other medicinals.

🕊️ Magpie

Male magpie meat is sweet and cold. It was used for urinary stones, wasting-thirst, irritability and heat in the four limbs, and difficult urination and defecation.

🦅 Eagle

Eagle droppings are slightly cold and slightly toxic. They were used for infantile milk accumulation, foreign bodies stuck in the throat, and scar removal, mostly for external use or in pediatric practice.

🦅 Osprey

Osprey bone, prepared by calcination to retain its nature (shāo cún xìng), was used for bone knitting, reflecting the ancient concept of "treating bone with bone."

The above presents the main content of the Compendium of Materia Medica · Avian Section. The ancients incorporated bird meat, blood, fat, bile, eggs, feces, and bones into medicinal use, reflecting the materia medica philosophy of "making the most of every part" and a classification logic of "categorical analogy based on observable characteristics." However, many of these formulas carry the limitations of their era and should be approached from a scholarly and historical perspective rather than directly applied to modern disease management.

🧠 Deep Understanding

Core Principles 💡

• Flesh-and-blood substances tonify deficiency: Poultry meat, blood, and eggs are mostly sweet, warm, or sweet and neutral. The ancients believed they could directly supplement qi, blood, essence, and marrow, making them suitable for consumptive fatigue, chronic illness, postpartum, and the elderly—such as black-boned chicken, yellow hen, sparrow meat, and turtledove.
• Same bird, different parts, different properties and functions: Meat tonifies, blood moves, fat moistens, bile clears, droppings unblock, and bone knits. For instance, the chicken gizzard lining promotes digestion, dried chicken feces promotes diuresis and dispels dampness, and chicken gallbladder clears heat. This reflects an awareness of "one thing, one polarity (taiji)" within materia medica.
• Like treats like; organs treat organs: Chicken liver treats blurred vision, chicken gizzard lining treats food stagnation, and osprey bone knits bone—all rooted in the analogical thinking that "similar supplements similar."
• Feather color, sex, and medicinal properties are linked: Roosters lean warm, black-boned chickens lean toward nourishing yin, white chickens lean toward clearing and moistening, and yellow chickens lean toward the spleen. These are traditional medicinal classifications, not modern pharmacological conclusions.

Modern Understanding 🌟

• Poultry meat and eggs are indeed high-quality protein sources with nutritional support value for malnutrition and chronic debility; duck fat and goose fat possess some skin-moisturizing properties, and external use for chapped skin has a basis in life experience.
• Chicken gizzard lining contains digestive enzymes; the traditional recognition of its digestive aid can receive some modern explanation—though whether active components survive calcination processing requires further research.
• Feces as medicine—such as jī shǐ bái, yè míng shā, wǔ líng zhī, zuǒ pán lóng, and bái dīng xiāng—represents products of limited ancient medical conditions. Modern use is not recommended due to hygiene, infection, and toxicological risks.
• Bat-based medicinals pose public health safety hazards and conflict with modern principles of epidemic prevention; capturing or using bats independently should be firmly avoided.
• Many recorded "indications" lack rigorous clinical verification and cannot replace standard diagnosis and treatment.

Wellness Insights ⚡

• Poultry and eggs should be thoroughly cooked and consumed as part of a balanced diet. Those with deficiency may appropriately consume easily digestible poultry broth or steamed eggs, but practices such as consuming raw eggs or using animal feces are unsafe and not recommended.
• For external skin moisturizing, food-grade oils or regulated skincare products are preferable to self-prepared wild bird fats.
• Maintain dietary moderation to avoid overindulging in rich, fatty foods; lightness, diversity, and moderation matter most.
• If symptoms such as edema, jaundice, hemorrhage, syncope, fractures, or persistent fever occur, seek medical care promptly rather than relying on ancient formulas.

📚 Related Knowledge

• Associated Concepts: Flesh-and-blood substances with emotional connectivity (xuè ròu yǒu qíng zhī pǐn), the four natures and five flavors, channel tropism, calcination to retain nature (shāo cún xìng), like-treats-like, and animal feces used as medicine (yè míng shā, wǔ líng zhī, zuǒ pán lóng, bái dīng xiāng).
• Further Reading: Compendium of Materia Medica · Animal Section, Compendium of Materia Medica · Shellfish Section, Shennong's Classic of the Materia Medica, and the avian sections of Supplement to the Materia Medica (Běn Cǎo Shí Yí).

This content is based on classical Chinese medical texts and is provided solely for traditional cultural study and scholarly appreciation. It does not constitute any form of medical diagnosis, medication, or treatment advice. Seek prompt medical attention for any health concerns.