Besides dryness and looseness, the texture of stool is also marked by indigested food, looseness complicated by dryness, feces with pus and blood and hematochezia, etc. Stool with indigested food is usually due to asthenia cold in the spleen and stomach or kidney asthenia and decline of fire in the vital gate. Occasional dry and loose stool is called looseness complicated by dryness usually caused by liver depression and spleen asthenia as well as imbalance between the liver and he spleen; loose stool following dry feces in defecation is often due to weakness of the spleen and the stomach; stool mingled with pus, blood and mucus is known as pus and blood stool, usually seen in dysentery due to accumulation of damp heat in the intestines which damages the meridians and coagulates qi and blood into pus blood; blood in stool is known as hematochezia which is divided into distal bleeding marked by bleeding following stool with purplish blood and proximal bleeding marked by bleeding preceding stool with fresh blood; loose stool with black color like pitch is usually due to damage of the stomach collateral and retention of blood stasis.