Xue Yu Tan
StarCrinis Carbonisatus (carbonized human hair; keratin char)
Traditionally used for
- Nose & throat
- Teeth & mouth
- Cough & breathing
- Digestion
- Urinary & fluids
- Menstrual & women's health
- Skin
☯ TCM Properties
Astringes leakage of Blood and stops bleeding; Tonifies Yin and promotes urination; Eliminates Blood Stasis; Generates flesh and resolves sores
Traditional Chinese Uses
Xue Yu Tan (Crinis Carbonisatus), "blood-remainder charcoal," is prepared by carbonizing clean human hair. Bitter and neutral, entering the Heart, Liver, Kidney and Stomach channels, it is a Blood-regulating hemostatic that astringes leakage of Blood and stops bleeding while simultaneously eliminating Blood Stasis, so it is said to stop bleeding without retaining Stasis. This makes it broadly applicable to many bleeding patterns, including nosebleed, coughing or vomiting of blood, blood in the urine or stool, and uterine bleeding.
It additionally tonifies Yin and promotes urination, useful for painful, bloody urinary dribbling (Lin syndrome), and topically it generates flesh and helps resolve sores. It is given as a decoction (about 6–10 g) or, more commonly, powdered (roughly 1.5–3 g), and applied directly to bleeding surfaces such as gums and nose. Being an animal/human-derived charred substance, it should be properly processed.
Relationships
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Botanical Description
Xue Yu Tan, literally blood-remainder charcoal, is Crinis Carbonisatus, prepared by carbonizing washed clean human hair in a closed crucible until it forms shiny black brittle masses that retain the form of clumped hair. The processed material is broken into irregular pieces, light in weight, with a faint scorched odor and a slightly salty taste. The substance is classified in traditional Chinese medicine as a processed animal-derived medicinal, bitter and neutral in nature, entering the Liver and Stomach channels; it stops bleeding, dispels blood stasis, and promotes urination, and is used for hematemesis, epistaxis, hemoptysis, hematuria, hematochezia, uterine bleeding, and traumatic bleeding. It is typically applied topically as a powder or taken internally in pills and powders rather than decocted, often paired with other hemostatics.
Active Constituents
Carbonaceous keratin char
Pyrolysed protein residue; amorphous carbonConcentration: The bulk of the finished drug. The starting material, raw human hair, is described in the Chinese materia medica as 12-15% water, about 0.3% ash, 3.4-5.8% fat, 17.4% nitrogen and about 5% sulfur, together with variable melanin; those figures describe the hair, not the char, since the sealed calcination destroys the protein.
The substantive content of this drug is what carbonisation produces, not what hair contains. Sealed calcination (men duan) heats cleaned hair in a covered pot until scorched, and the endpoint is judged by paper on the lid turning scorch-yellow, which corresponds to a few hundred degrees Celsius. What comes out is a nitrogen- and sulfur-rich carbon char, not keratin. Any account of the drug's activity that reasons from keratin chemistry is reasoning about the wrong substance.
Crinis Carbonisatus carbon dots (CrCi-CDs)
Carbon nanodots; quasi-spherical carbonaceous nanoparticlesConcentration: Isolated from an aqueous extract of the char after calcination at around 350 C, then dialysed and purified. Yield is not standardised and no monograph controls for them.
This is the only fraction of the drug that has been chemically defined, and essentially all of the modern pharmacology attaches to it rather than to the crude char. Carbon dots isolated from the drug show haemostatic, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity in animal models. It matters that the tested article is a purified nanoparticle fraction: a decoction of the crude drug at 6-10 g has not been shown to deliver it.
Residual mineral ash (calcium, iron)
Inorganic ashConcentration: Small; hair ash is about 0.3% before carbonisation and is concentrated by the loss of organic mass.
Trace mineral residue with no attributed action. It is one of the few things about the drug that a routine identity test could in principle check.
Donor-derived biological material (residual)
Human-derived source materialConcentration: Not characterised. The drug is in the 2020 Chinese Pharmacopoeia, Volume I, as item 218 of the medicinal materials and decoction pieces. Its source specification is human hair, degreased with alkaline water, rinsed and dried before sealed calcination; no donor is identified, no lot is traceable to one, and the standard carries no virus testing item.
Recorded here because this is a human-derived drug and the position needs stating rather than assuming. There is no donor infectious-disease screening in the standard, no viral-inactivation validation of the kind demanded of other human-derived medicinal products, and no traceability. What actually mitigates the risk is the pyrolysis itself, which destroys enveloped and non-enveloped viruses along with the protein. Prions are the residual theoretical question and it is genuinely open: hair does not appear anywhere in the WHO tissue infectivity tables, so it has not been assessed, while skin sits in the lower-infectivity category with PrP-TSE detected in some TSEs. Absence of an assay is not evidence of absence.
⚠ Drug Interactions
Warfarin and other oral anticoagulants
The drug is used as a haemostatic and the carbon-dot fraction shortens clotting time in animal models; a Crinis Carbonisatus-sepiolite composite shortened coagulation time by 36% against blank and activated both extrinsic and intrinsic pathways in vitro. Those are topical and material-science experiments, not systemic pharmacology, and no study has measured INR or any coagulation parameter in a person taking the drug orally alongside an anticoagulant. The concern is directional and unquantified.
Clinical note: Not a reason to withhold either drug, but check INR if Xue Yu Tan is added to a stable warfarin regimen.
Orally co-administered medicines in general
Like any carbonised drug, the char has an adsorbent surface. Activated charcoal reduces drug exposure by roughly 38% to 52% when given within an hour, but the char of a men duan calcination is not activated carbon and its surface area is far lower, so that figure is a ceiling and not an estimate. No adsorption measurement exists for this drug.
Clinical note: Separate from narrow-therapeutic-index oral medication by about two hours.
Human placenta (Zi He Che) and other human-derived Chinese drugs
This is a regulatory rather than a pharmacological interaction, and it is worth recording because the Chinese Pharmacopoeia has drawn a line between the two drugs. Zi He Che and the patent medicines containing it were dropped from the 2015 edition and are absent from the 2020 contents list; the Pharmacopoeia Commission gave as its reasons the health ministry's prohibition on trading in placentas and the fact that the crude-drug standard lacked any virus testing item, so a safety risk could not be excluded. Xue Yu Tan was retained as item 218. Its standard also has no virus testing item; the difference is that this drug is pyrolysed and the placenta was not. Prescribing both stacks two unscreened human-derived materials.
Clinical note: Note that Zi He Che is no longer a pharmacopoeial drug in China. Where a patient or a formula calls for multiple human-derived substances, document the sourcing or decline.
Dosage
| Form | Amount | Frequency | Duration | Population | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| decoction | 5–10 g | Daily | — | — | 中国药典 2020 monograph 【血余炭】【用法与用量】5～10g。 【性味与归经】苦，平。归肝、胃经。 — Matched to ChP by romanised drug name (pinyin 'Xue Yu Tan' → 血余炭); the romanisation is unique across all 649 ChP monographs, and the match was cross-checked against this record's own TCM temperature. Quoted verbatim. |
Evidence Tier
Moderate evidence · 6 studiesRecorded studies by study design, strongest design at the top. This is a study-design tier only, not a GRADE rating: it does not weigh risk of bias, consistency or precision.
Systematic review / meta-analysis
0
Randomized controlled trial
0
Other clinical trial
0
Observational / case report
0
In vitro / animal
6
0 verified · 6 unverified
Show 6 studies
- The neuroprotective effect of pretreatment with carbon dots from Crinis Carbonisatus (carbonized human hair) against cerebral ischemia reperfusion injury
- Crinis Carbonisatus-Derived Carbon Dot Suspension Alleviates Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
- Multi-target neuroprotection of carbon dots derived from Crinis Carbonisatus in multiple acute epilepsy model
- Injectable self-healing hydrogels loaded with Crinis Carbonisatus nanoparticles for rapid hemostasis and wound healing
- Synergistically Enhanced Composite Hemostatic Material Derived from Crinis Carbonisatus and Sepiolite
- Chemical and Morphological Characterization of Crinis Carbonisatus
Other / unclassified
0
Verified: design read from PubMed for a DOI that resolves to the cited paper Unverified: taken from the study's recorded description
Clinical Studies
The neuroprotective effect of pretreatment with carbon dots from Crinis Carbonisatus (carbonized human hair) against cerebral ischemia reperfusion injury
Carbon dots were separated from the carbonised drug and given to rats before middle cerebral artery occlusion. Pretreatment reduced infarct volume and blood-brain barrier permeability, improved neurological deficit scores, lowered cortical TNF-alpha and IL-6, suppressed aspartate and glutamate and raised 5-HT. This is a preclinical rodent study of a purified nanoparticle fraction given prophylactically, not of the decocted drug, and it has no bearing on the drug's traditional haemostatic indication.
Crinis Carbonisatus-Derived Carbon Dot Suspension Alleviates Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
A carbon dot suspension prepared by calcining human hair reduced p-JNK, p-ERK and p-p38 in a mouse temporal lobe epilepsy model, lowered IL-6, IL-1beta and TNF-alpha, raised TGF-beta1, restored SOD, GSH and CAT, shifted the glutamate/GABA balance and reduced hippocampal CA1 and CA3 neuronal damage, with improved cognition and less anxiety-like behaviour. Mouse model with in vitro LPS work alongside; no human data.
Multi-target neuroprotection of carbon dots derived from Crinis Carbonisatus in multiple acute epilepsy model
A further rodent study of the same carbon dot fraction across several acute seizure models, reporting multi-target neuroprotection. It extends the epilepsy line of work but adds no clinical evidence, and like the rest of this literature it comes from a small group of collaborating laboratories.
Injectable self-healing hydrogels loaded with Crinis Carbonisatus nanoparticles for rapid hemostasis and wound healing
Nanoparticles of the carbonised drug were loaded into a catechol-modified chitosan and oxidised dextran hydrogel. The composite promoted blood cell aggregation and thrombus formation and reduced bleeding by 84.11-94.34% in a rat liver model and 70.12-92.37% in a tail model, with antibacterial and antioxidant activity. This is topical wound-dressing evidence for the drug's haemostatic reputation; it says nothing about oral dosing.
Synergistically Enhanced Composite Hemostatic Material Derived from Crinis Carbonisatus and Sepiolite
Solid-state composites of the carbonised drug with sepiolite clay raised blood storage modulus to 350 Pa within 50 seconds and shortened coagulation time by 36% against blank and 12% against sepiolite alone, with coagulation parameters indicating activation of both extrinsic and intrinsic pathways. Whole-blood and materials testing only; the porous carbon structure of the drug is credited with providing the coagulation-initiating surface.
Chemical and Morphological Characterization of Crinis Carbonisatus
A characterisation study of the carbonised material itself rather than of an isolated fraction, describing its chemistry and morphology. Useful as the rare piece of work that examines what practitioners actually dispense, though it is a small study in a regional journal and reports no pharmacological endpoint.
⚠ Safety & Contraindications
Contraindications
Its use is cautious in patients with weakness of the spleen and stomach.
Source: Xi S, Gong Y. Essentials of Chinese Materia Medica and Medical Formulas. Academic Press/Elsevier, 2017, pp. 219–222.
Historical Texts
Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Divine Husbandman's Classic of the Materia Medica)
Han dynasty, compiled by the 2nd century CEMing Yi Bie Lu (Miscellaneous Records of Famous Physicians), attributed to Tao Hongjing
Southern and Northern Dynasties, c. 500 CEJin Gui Yao Lue (Essentials from the Golden Cabinet), Zhang Zhongjing
Eastern Han dynasty, c. 200-210 CEReferences
- Chen Zhi, Ye Si-Yong, Yang Ying, Li Zhong-Yuan. A review on charred traditional Chinese herbs: carbonization to yield a haemostatic effect . Pharmaceutical Biology (2019) [DOI]
- World Health Organization. WHO Tables on Tissue Infectivity Distribution in Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies . World Health Organization, Geneva (2010)
- Burnett Christina L., Bergfeld Wilma F., Belsito Donald V., Hill Ronald A., Klaassen Curtis D., Liebler Daniel C., Marks James G., Shank Ronald C., Slaga Thomas J., Snyder Paul W., Gill Lillian J., Heldreth Bart. Safety Assessment of Keratin and Keratin-Derived Ingredients as Used in Cosmetics . International Journal of Toxicology (2021) [DOI]
- Hoegberg Lotte C. G., Shepherd Greene, Wood David M., Johnson Jami, Hoffman Robert S., Caravati E. Martin, Chan Wui Ling, Smith Silas W., Olson Kent R., Gosselin Sophie. Systematic review on the use of activated charcoal for gastrointestinal decontamination following acute oral overdose . Clinical Toxicology (2021) [DOI]
- Chinese Pharmacopoeia Commission. Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China, 2020 Edition, Volume I: contents list of medicinal materials and decoction pieces . China Medical Science Press (2020)
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before using any herbal remedy, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.
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