The origins of the Four-Ingredient Soup can be traced back to the *Immortal's Secret Formula for Healing Injuries and Rejuvenation*, recorded in the personal medical notes of Daoist Lin during the Tang Dynasty.
The original text reads: "Four-Ingredient Soup. For severe injuries with blood stasis in the intestines. Take equal parts of white peony, Danggui, Dried Rehmannia Glutinosa, and Chuan Xiong. A single dose is three qian. Decoct in one and a half cups of water until it has reduced to seven-tenths of its volume. Take hot on an empty stomach."
The first official text to include the Four-Ingredient Soup was the *Taiping Hui Min Heji Ju Fang* from the Northern Song Dynasty, which also laid the foundation for the soup to become known as the "Number One Formula for Gynecology."
Blood is one of the vital substances that constitute the human body. Insufficient blood leads to blood deficiency.
