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Charcoal drugs are specialized medicines in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that have one common notable feature, that of exposure to high-temperature carbonization. The earliest comprehensive literature report regarding charcoal drugs was found in the book Prescriptions for Fifty-two Diseases, which was written before the 3rd century BC. Phellodendri Cortex (PC), called ‘Huang Bo’ in Chinese, exhibits detoxification, heat-clearing and damp-drying effects (1,2). PC Carbonisatus (PCC), the charcoal- processed product of PC, first recorded in the Taiping Holy Prescriptions for Universal Relief (978-992 AD, in China), has been used in TCM to treat varieties of hemorrhagic diseases for more than 1000years. As the precursor herb of PCC, PC has active ingredients such as alkaloids, including berberine, jatrorrhizine and palmatine (3,4). PC is used in China to treat patients who suffer from gastroenteritis, abdominal pain or diarrhea (1,2). After charcoal processing, the biological effect of PCC becomes hemostatic, but how this transformation occurs is not clear. The hemostatic effect of PCC is supported by considerable clinical evidence, but the bioactive hemostatic components of PCC and their mechanism have yet to be determined. Though previous studies have attempted to identify the small molecular compounds that are responsible for the effects of charcoal drugs, the results have not been consistent or widely accepted. Therefore, the hemostatic components of charcoal drugs must be determined. Under this circumstances, further researches are needed. As a new carbon nanomaterial, which was first obtained during purification of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) via preparative electrophoresis in 2004 (5), CDs have been widely studied (6). Because of their low cost, abundance in nature, high hydrophilicity, easy surface modification, biocompatibility, chemical and photochemical stability and high quantum yield (QY) (7), recent research has focused on the development of multifunctional fluorescent CDs that can be used for bio-imaging along with their antioxidant (8), sensing (9,10), photo catalytic (11-14), etc. Recently, the therapeutic potential of CDs has been demonstrated in cell lines and animal models. It was reported that CDs could be a novel strategy for the discovery of novel treatment for Alzheimer's disease (15,16). In another study, CDs prepared from ginger could inhibit the growth of tumors in nude mice (17), which provide evidence establishing the potential for the use of CDs in the development of...