What it is:
This herb consi-sts of the bone of Sepiella maindroni de Rochebrune, or Sepia esculenta Hoyle(family Sepiidae) , which is produced incoastal regions. The bone is taken off,washed clean, driedin the sun during the day and exposed to dew at night tillthere is no fishy odour, and used unprepared.

Property:
Salty and astringentin flavour slightly, warm in property, acting on the liver,kidney and stomach channels.

Effects:
Inducingastringency to arresthemorrhage, keeping the kidney essence, curing leukorrhagia, decreasing the produ-ction of gastric acidto relieve stomacha-che, and removing dampness to heal wounds.

Used for:
1. Metrorrhagia,metrostaxis and traumatic bleeding. For metrorrhagia andmetrostaxis, it is often used with rubiaroot, carbonized pe-tiole of windmill palm and Chinese gall,as in Decoction for Reinforcing Chong Channel(Guchong Tang); for traumatic blee-ding, its powder is used for external application.

2. Seminal emissionand leukorrhagia. To arrest seminal emi-ssion, it can be used with dogwood fruit, dodder seed and flatstem milkve-tch seed; for leu-korrhagia, it canbe used with dahurian angelica root and carbonized hair.

3. For stomachacheand acid regurgita-tion, it is often used with Zhejiang fritillary bulb,i.e.cuttle- bone and fritillary Bulb Powder (Wu Bei San);if the stomachache is associated with hemorrhage, cuttle-bone can be used with hyacinth ble-tilla, i.e. cuttle-bone and Hyacinth Powder (Wu Ji San).

4. For the treat-ment of exudative skin infections, eczema and purulent ulcers, its powder alone is used for external application,or it is used with calcined gypsum,driedalum,phellodendron bark and natural indigo.

Dosage and admi-nistration: 6- 12g, decocted in water for an oral dose, or1.5-3g of its powderfor each swallow; proper amount for external use. Precautions: This herb should notbe used in cases ofheat in the interiordue to yin deficiency,and constipation.