Medical manuscripts from Ma Wang Dui 馬王堆

I just stumbled across Donald Harper's translation of the medical manuscripts, so here is his rendering of the entry on qinghao. It doesn't make for pretty reading:

Female Hemorrhoid

Recipe for (female hemorrhoids) that are one cun inside the anus, are shaped like a cow louse, burst and ooze blood when defecating, and face upward when not defecating.

Take five dou of urine. Use it to boil two large handfuls of qinghao, seven fuyu (golden carp) the size of a hand, a six cun piece of smithed gui (cinnamon), and two nodules of dried jiang (ginger).

Let it bubble ten times. Remove (the liquid) and put it in a water jar. Bury (the jar) under a sitting mat, make an opening in it, and fumigate the hemorrhoids. Stop when the medicine becomes cold. Fumigate thrice a day...

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