Donkey Skin

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Serves as the source material for preparing E Jiao - Lv Pi is historically important mainly because processed donkey-hide gelatin is made from it.
• Provides the raw collagen-rich animal material behind later blood-tonic preparations - any nourishing interpretation is usually mediated through cooked and refined gelatin rather than through stand-alone use of raw hide.
• Functions more as a medicinal raw material than as a commonly prescribed independent herb - direct clinical usage literature is much thinner than for E Jiao itself.

Secondary Actions

• Most classical therapeutic claims attach to processed E Jiao, so the stand-alone Lv Pi record should be read cautiously and as partly inferred from its role in the preparation chain.
• Trade authenticity and species identity are more central to Lv Pi than to most routine botanical herbs.

Classic Formulas

• E Jiao preparation traditions - Lv Pi is the essential raw material from which donkey-hide gelatin is produced before inclusion in blood-tonifying and bleeding-stabilizing formulas.

Classical References

• Historical and trade references treat donkey skin primarily as the source material for E Jiao rather than as a richly developed independent ben cao category.
• Because of that, modern interpretation of Lv Pi necessarily remains more conservative and more source-focused than the interpretation of E Jiao.