Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body "Three Corpses; demonic spirits believed to live in the human body and hasten death" and "gǔdú" 蠱毒 "gu poisoning"; a poison produced by venomous insects; cast a black magic spirit possession over someone". The first "Bencao gangmu" prescription for human nails is not from Chinese medical texts but from Daoist rituals for expelling what (Cooper & Sivin (1973: 220) describe as the "Three Corpse-Worms 三尸, the chief of the "inner gods" who are to the individual microcosm what the celestial bureaucracy is to the cosmos." Prescription 52.6.1, the 斬三尸法 "Method of Beheading the Three Corpses", involves supernaturally cutting the nails
History of beliefs about the human body History of beliefs about the human body The human body has been subject of much debate. How people are defined, and what defined them – be it their anatomy or their energy or both – depends on culture and time. Culture not only defines how sex is perceived but also how gender is defined. Today gender, sex, and identity continue to be of much debate and change based on what place and people are being examined. The early modern idea of the body was a cultural ideal, an understanding and approach to how the body works and what place that