What is silkworm excrement?

Everyone knows that silkworm feces is a traditional Chinese medicine. Many people don’t know whether silkworm feces is a plant or something else. Silkworm feces is actually silkworm feces. Everyone knows this. Silkworm feces can be divided into early silkworm feces and late silkworm feces. Early silkworm feces is the silkworm feces in spring, and late silkworm feces is the silkworm feces in autumn. Late silkworm feces are better for use as medicine. Silkworm feces are generally collected from silkworms that are in the second or third sleep.

Silkworms only eat mulberry leaves, and no other substances. The mulberry leaves quickly enter the silkworm's body after being chewed, and are quickly excreted from the body after simple absorption. Therefore, silkworm feces contain a lot of nutrients. There have been written records of silkworm feces being used as medicine for a long time. Silkworm feces can cure colds.

Dry silkworm feces are short cylindrical particles, 2 to 5 mm long and 1.5 to 3 mm in diameter. The surface is gray and rough, with 6 obvious longitudinal ridges and 3 to 4 shallow horizontal lines. The two ends are slightly flat and hexagonal. It is hard and brittle and easily breaks apart when exposed to moisture. Slightly smells of grass. The best ones are dry, black, solid, uniform and free of impurities. It is mainly produced in Zhejiang, Sichuan, Henan, Jiangsu, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong, Anhui, Gansu, Hubei, Shandong, Liaoning and other places.

Silkworm feces contain 83.77-90.44% organic matter, 9.56-16.23% ash, and 1.91-3.60% total nitrogen. It also contains chlorophyll, which can be extracted with ethanol or acetone. It is reported that the feces of third, fourth and fifth instar silkworms contain 1.6, 2.0 and 2.4% crude chlorophyll respectively, but only a small part of them is real chlorophyll. For example, the crude chlorophyll in the fifth-instar silkworm feces contains only 13.19% pure chlorophyll, with the rest being 48.92% saponifiable matter and 44.45% unsaponifiable matter. Silkworm excrement contains 0.25-0.29% phytol. It also contains unsaponifiable ingredients such as β-sitosterol, cholesterol, ergosterol, tetracosin and lupulin alcohol. β-Sitosterol-β-glucoside has been isolated from silkworm feces.

Silkworm feces have many medicinal values. People have accumulated rich experience in the long struggle against diseases. People in coastal areas often go to sea, and many people suffer from rheumatism. They use one or two ounces of late silkworm feces, decoct them into a soup and drink it three times, each time drinking it with half a cup of hot rice wine. The effect is quite ideal, and the disease can be cured without spending a penny.