" .~ ..

\ .

Chin¢se 'Her6~tl ~egends .

50
~ ... ,. - -

StQFies ~ --~ ~-, J •

.'-" " foF' Un<:1~rstanding Chinese lIerb~ ,' ,J

. 1 '
)

,Compiled and Translated by ZhuZh0ngbao & Zhu Liu

. .
Edited by ~.hris Flanagan
Project Editors: Wang Yanlong, Chris Flanagan & Liu Shui
Book Designer: Guo Miao
Typesetter: Wei Hongbo
Cover Designer: Guo Miao
Brush Calligraphy: Zhu Zhongbao
 About the Compilers-in-Chief

Mr. Zhu Zhongbao , professor & former dean of the

department of foreign languages of Henan College
of TCM, vice-director of China Translation Society
of TCM, and Committee Member of Committee
for Approval of English Translation aching of the
postgraduates and the research of TCM translation for
over twenty years. He has compiled, translated, and
proofed more than 30 books previously, including
academic monographs, textbooks and atlases as well
as more than thirty journal articles. His books have
been well-received both in China and abroad, and
some have won awards. Mr. Zhu is respected by
everyone who knows him for his learning, rigor and
persistence. He is now one of the TCM translation
experts in China.
Mr. Zhu Liu graduated from PLA Nanjing Foreign
Language Institute in 1982 and works in the Office
of Overseas Chinese Affairs of the State Council. He
obtained a Master Degree in International Relations
of Peking University in 2006. From 1982 to 1986,
he served in the Ministry of National Defense as
an English interpreter for senior high-ranking
government officials. In 1993, he served as United
Nations Military Observer in UN Transition Authority
in Cambodia (UNTAC), and was awarded UN Peace
Medal for the outstanding service in this peace-
keeping operation. From 1998 to 2001, he served
as a Consul in the Consulate General of the People's
Republic of China in Toronto. Now he is a Consul in
the Consulate General of P.R. China in New York. Mr.
Zhu Liu is a gifted man and has superb talent. There
is no doubt that he will make still greater contribution
to overseas Chinese affairs and the international
dissemination of TCM.
Chinese Herbal Legends
50 Stories for Understanding Chinese Herbs

Compiled and Translated by Zhll Zhongbao & Zhll Lin

Edited by C hris Flanagan

PMPH PEOPLE'S MEDICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE

www.pmph.com

Book Title: Chinese Herbal Legends

50 Stories for Understanding Chinese Herbs
$~1t~

Copyri g ht © 2006 by People 's Medical Publi shing Hou se. All rig hts reserved. No part of thi s
publication may be reproduced , stored in a database or retri eval system , or tran smitted in an y
form or by any e lectronic, mechanical , photocopy, or other recordin g mean s, without the prior
written permission of the publi sher.
Contact addres s : Bld g 3, 3 Qu , Fang Qun Yuan , Fang Zhuan g, Beijing 100078, P.R. C hina ,
Phone/ fax: 86 106761 7315 , E-mail: pmph@ pmph.com

Disclaimer
This book is for educational and reference purposes only. Jn view of the
possibility of human error or changes in medical science, neither the author,
editor nor the publisher nor any other party who has been involved in the
preparation or publication of this work guarantees that the information
contai ned herein is in every respect accurate or comp lete. The medicinal
therapy and treatment techniques presented in this book are provided for the
purpose of reference only. If readers wish to attempt any of the techniques
or utilize any of the medicinal therap ies contained in this book, the publisher
assumes no responsibility for any such actions .
It is the responsibility of the readers to wnderstand and adhere to local laws
and regu lations concerning the practice of these techniques and methods. The
authors, editors and publishers disclaim all responsibility for any li abi li ty,
loss, injury, or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the
use and application of any of the contents of this book.

First published: 2006

ISBN:7-117-07951-7/R'7952
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data:
A cata log record for this book is available from the
Library of Congress.
ISBN 7-117-07951-7

Printed in P.R. China

 Preface
Chinese medicinal herbs, the quintessence of
TCM, arouse more and more interest among the
people of the world because of their safety, smaller
number of side effects and confirmed curative effects.
For thousands of years, herbs have made a great
contribution to the development and prosperity of
the Chinese nation, and to the health of the Chinese
people.
Unlike most other English versions, Chinese Herbal
Legends not only introduces basic knowledge, but
also presents vivid Chinese folk stories about one
hundred Chinese medicinal herbs. Naturally, this
book features the following qualities: it is scientific,
practical and unique.
This work consists of two volumes, each comprising
fifty herbs. All the translators involved are well
versed in translating TCM into English to ensure that
the English version be accurate, clear and graceful.
The English manuscript of this book was edited by
an American, Ms. Chris Flanagan, to make this book
suitable to Western readers. We hope that this book
will be profitable to medical theorists, teachers and
students.
At the time of publication, we would like to
acknowledge the following individuals who have made
significant contributions to this book: People's Medical
Publishing House director Liu Shui and Dr. Shen
Chengling provided vitally important support for the
successful publication of this book. Some stories in
the first volume were greatly helped by the input of
professors Li Xiaoping and Ding Wenjie. During the
compiling of this book, Ms. Ma Qj.ujing, Mr. Zhu Lin
and Ms. Hu Xinxin provided their helpful comments
and suggestions.
We hope that readers of Chinese Herbal Legends will
find it enjoyable, exciting, and practically useful. We
sincerely invite any advice or criticism of this book
from scholars at home and abroad.

Zhu Zhongbao
Henan College of TCM
Zhengzhou, China
June 2006
 1. Ma Huang (mc.jt) ........... .. .............. 4
2. Zi sa Ye( ~jJFn-j-) ........................... 8

3. Xin Yi( *~ ) · ................................ 14

4. Sang Ye ( ~ Il-j-) ..... ·.. ...... ·.. .... ........ ·18

5. Chai Hu (~tJJ) · .. · .......... ·.... .. ........ ·24
6. Ge Gen (ItH&) .... ·............ .... ·........ 30
7. Zhi Mii (5;Qit]:) ..... .. ... ............... ·· .. ·34
8. Lu Gen (Pt'&) .............................. 42
CONTENTS
9. Xia Ka Cao C~Ai51j!I) ..................... 46
10. Huang Lian (jt:i!) .... · .... · .......... ·52
11. lin Yin Hua (~f&:7t) .................. 56
12. Pu Gong Ying Oi0~) ·.............. 60
13. Zi Hua Di Ding (~:7t±ti!.T) .. ·.. · .. · 64

14. Ma E6 (.IbfJJ) .............................. 70

15. Ecii T6u Weng (8 =*~) .......... · .. .. 74
16. Ma Chi Xian (.Ib%:%) .................. 78
17. Eai Wei (8~) .......... · .. · ............ · 84
18. Dfl Huang C;kj() ............................................... ·······90

19. Wei Ling Xian (m'Zm.{W) ·············································96

20. WiJ Feng She (~Ml!lrt) ............................................. 102

21. Sang }1 Sheng (~*"t.) .......................................... 106

22. Cang Zhli (i'btt) ................................................... 110
23. Che Qian Zi ($M.y) ............................................. 114

24. Yin Chen Hao (!f~(i;) .......................................... 118

25. }in Qian Cao (~f~J¥:) ............................................. 122

26. Wli ZhiJ Yli C~Jf¥R:) ................................................ 126

27. Shan Zha (IlJt.!'i) ...................................................... 130

28. San Qi (-= {:) ......................................................... 134
29. Xian He Cao ({w~J¥:) ............................................. 140
30. Y1 Mil cao (~-BtJ¥:) ................................................ 144
31. Nili Xi (4$) ...................................................... ···152
32. Bai Qian (aM) ...................................................... 156
33. Gua L6u (J1l~) ...................................................... 160

34. Bei Mil (If! -Bt) ...................................................... 166

35. Zui Xian Tao (lI'P{llJtj~) ............................................. 172
36. Zhil Sha (*1iY) ...................................................... 176
37. Ren Shen (A~) ............................................ ··········180
38. Shan YilO (IlJ~'1.j) ...................................................... 184
39. Can Cao (it1j'!:) ...................................................... 188
40. Xil Duan (~!:I9T) ...................................................... 192
41. TilSiZi(jif'f'r) ···················································198
42. Dang Cui (~V=l) ................................................... 202
3
43. Bai He CS il) ............................................... ··········210
44. Huang Jing (Jt;m) ................................. ···············214
45. Nil Zhen Zi (:9.- ff( 'f) ................................................ 220
46. Jin Ying Zi (:i:~r) ........................................... ·····224
47. Chang Shan (m-IlJ) ················································228
48. Li Lri C~?) ............................................. ············232
49. She Chuang Zi (llrtJ5l(r) ··········································236
50. Da Suan (*ifJf;) ...................................................... 242
 NAME ············ ...................... .
English name : Ephedra
Pharmaceutical name: Herba Ephedrae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent, slightly bitter and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED · ............ .... .

Lung and Urinary Bladder

ACTIONS ················ ............. .

1. Induces sweating to relieve exterior
syndrome
2. Diffuses the lung to calm asthma

1 3. Promotes urination to relieve

edema

INDICATIONS , . . . . . . . .. .. . ............ .
1. Common cold due to wind co ld
2. Cough and asthma
3. Edema due to wind

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION ·· ...

2-9g., decocted in water for oral use

4
 here was an old herbalist who was childless.
He had one disappointingly arrogant student,
who had only a little knowledge, yet he looked down
upon his teacher. Sometimes, instead of giving his
teacher the money he earned by selling herbs, he
secretly spent it himself. The teacher was completely
broken-hearted. 5
"You don't need me any more. Please go work by
yourself," said the teacher.
"All right!" said the student without hesitating.
"But there is one kind of herb that you can't
thoughtlessly sell."
"Which one?"
"Leafless grass. Its roots and stems have different
uses. To induce sweating, you use the stems; for
other uses, you use the roots. If you make a mistake,
you will make people die. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Repeat it."
 The student repeated what his teacher told him
at once, but he didn't really mean what he said. He
wasn't thinking at all.
After they parted, the student and teacher sold
herbs separately; and the student became bolder
than before because his teacher was not with him.
He dared to treat all kinds of disease though he only
knew a few medicinal herbs. Not too long afterwards,
he caused a patient's death with leafless grass. The
dead man's relatives took him to the county official
6 at once.
"From whom did you learn?" asked the county
official. The student gave his teachers name, and the
county official ordered his teacher called for.
"How did you teach your student? He has made a
patient die!" said the official.
"I am not to blame," said the teacher, "because I
clearly gave him instructions about leafless grass."
"Do you remember this?" the official demanded of
the student.
"To induce sweating, you use the stems; for other
uses, you use the roots. If you make a mistake, you
could make people die," said the student.
 "Did the patient sweat or not?"
"He was sweating all over."
"What medicine did you use?"
"The stems of the leafless grass."
"You are reckless! No wonder you caused his death!"
said the official angrily. He ordered that the student
be beaten and sentenced to three years of imprison-
ment. Because the teacher had nothing to do with it,
he was set free right away.
After three years of life in prison, the student
became honest. He found his teacher and apologized,
saying that he was determined to thoroughly rectify
his life. When his teacher saw he had changed, he
taught him his medical skills. Whenever the student
used leafless grass, he was very careful, and since this
kind of medicinal herb had given him much trouble,
he named it "Trouble (ma fan in Chinese) Grass." Later ,
its name was changed to "ma huang" because its roots
are yellow (huang).

DLJ[l][l][lJ[l][l][!D[!1!][!!][Jru
EJ[:JLJEJ~[!][!]OOOOOOOO
 NAME · .............................. .
English name: Perilla Leaf
Pharmaceutical name: Folium Perillae

NATURE AND FLAVOR .... . ........ .

Pungent and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED ····· ........... .

Lung and Spleen

ACTIONS ,"
1. Releases the exterior and disperses
cold
2. Promotes the movement of qi and

2 expands the chest

3. Used during pregnancy for slippery
fetus or morning sickness
4. Resolves seafood poisoning

INDICATIONS " .. .......... .. .... ..

1. Common cold due to wind cold
2. Vomiting due to oppression in the
chest
3. Spleen and stomach qi stagnation

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION · ...

3-9g ., decocted in water for oral use,
don't overcook

8
 Z'(SiA }!e

n the Double Ninth Festival, a group of rich

young men had a crab-eating contest in a
wineshop. Because the crabs were delicious, they ate
many. The empty crab shells piled up like a small
tower on the table.
Hua Tuo also came there to have a drink with his
student. When he saw the young men having their 9
crab-eating contest and eating crazily, he kindly tried
to persuade them to stop.
"Crabs are 'cold', so you'd better not eat too much.
A crab-eating contest won't be good for you young
men."
"We eat what we have paid for. Who wants to listen
to you!" the young men rudely replied.
"If you eat more, you will suffer from diarrhea; it
could endanger your lives."
"Get away with you! Don't try to frighten us! Even
if we die of eating, what business is it of yours?"
Not listening to Hua Tuo's advice, these young men
 continued their extravagant eating and drinking.
"Crabs are delicious! Who says that people may die
by eating them? Let's eat as we like to make the old
man die of jealousy!" one of them shouted.
As Hua Tuo saw that they acted so rashly, he went
to see the shop owner.
"You mustn't sell them more wine, or they will die
of it,"said Hua Tuo.
As the shop owner wanted to earn money from
these young men, why should he listen to Hua Tuo?
10 "Even if something happens, what business is it
of yours? Mind your own business, and leave mine
alone," said the boss angrily.
Hua Tuo could only sit down with a sigh and drink
his own wine.
At midnight, the young men suddenly cried out
that they were suffering from stomachache. Some of
them were even sweating all over and some rolled
about under the table.
"What's wrong with you?" the owner hurriedly
asked.
"We are suffering from serious stomachaches.
Please help us and send for a doctor at once."
 "Where can 1 find a doctor at midnight?"
"Please help us. Otherwise, we will die."
"I am a doctor." Hua Tuo said and came over to
them.
Turning pale with fright, the young men cried out,
"Oh!" But they had no time to care about losing face,
and cried, "Master, please give us a cure!"
"Didn't you refuse my advice just now?" asked Hua
Tuo.
"A great person doesn't care about a common per-
son's mistake. Please have mercy on us and save us. 11
We will pay as much as you want."
"I don't want money."
"We will give whatever you like."
"I want you to promise me one thing."
"Not just one, we will promise you one thousand,
even ten thousand things. Please tell us what it is!"
"From now on, you should listen to old men's ad-
vice and not be so reckless!"
"Certainly! Please save us!"
Hua Tuo went out with his student to gather some
stems and leaves of a kind of purple grass which he
then decocted for the young men. Mter they drank
 this medicinal liquid, their stomachaches stopped.
"How are you feeling now?" asked Hua Tuo.
"Much better!"
At that time there was no name for this kind of
medicinal herb. Because the patients felt really com-
fortable after taking it, Hua Tuo named it zi shu.
The young men said goodbye to Hua Tuo with
many thanks and went home.
"That was dangerous! You shouldn't only want to
earn money. You should also care about people's
12 lives," said Hua Tuo to the shop owner.
The owner nodded, ashamed.
"What book says that these leaves of purple grass
can reduce crab poison?" asked Hua Tuo's student.
Hua Tuo told his student that this knowledge was
not found in books, but he had learnt it from ani-
mals.
One summer, while Hua Tuo was gathering medici-
nal herbs along a river bank, he saw an otter seize a
big fish. The otter ate it for a long time until its belly
was as big as a drum. The otter was sometimes in
the water, sometimes on the bank, sometimes laying
motionlessly and sometimes moving wildly about. It
seemed to be feeling extremely poorly. But after it
had climbed to a piece of land with purple grass be-
side the bank and ate some leaves and lay still for a
while, it was as well as usual.
Hua Tuo thought that according to the theory of
Chinese medicine, since fish is cold in nature, and
the purple grass is warm in nature, the purple grass
could perhaps reduce fish poison. From then on he
kept it in mind.
Later, Hua Tuo made pills and medical powder with
stems and leaves of the grass. He discovered that it 13
had the ability to release "cold"and was good for the
spleen. It also could moisten lungs, cure cough and
clear phlegm.
Because this medicinal herb was purple and made
people comfortable, Hua Tuo named it zi shu (Purple +
Comfortable). But nobody knows why people later
called it zi suo

CJCJLJc::JEJEJ~~~[!][f]
~
uEJEJ[1J[JI][Pf]~
CJ00EJITl
 NAME
English name : Magnolia Flower-bud
Pharmaceutical name : Flos Magnoliae

NAT URE AND FLAVOR

Pungent and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED .......... .

Lung and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Ex pels wind-cold and opens the
nasal orifice
2. Bacteriostat, tranquillizer

3 3. Reduces blood pressure

INDICATIONS
1. Common cold due to wind cold
2. Nasal obstruction or congestion

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

3-9g . decocted in water for oral use

14
 r. Qj.n suffered from a strange illness. He had
a running and festering nose which smelt
badly. This kind of illness was such a nuisance that
his wife and children didn't want to be near him. He
had sent for many doctors, but no medicine was ef-
fective. Because he thought that living like this was
no better than death, he planned to die. Fortunately, 15
one of his friends learnt this.
"The world is so large. If the local doctors can't
cure your illness, why don't you go to the other parts
of the country to see doctors? And besides, traveling
from place to place and enjoying the beauties of
nature will relieve your boredom," advised his friend.
Mr. Qj.n thought this was reasonable, so he set out
on horseback with a servant.
Though he had been to many places, he didn't
meet any doctor who could cure his nose. Finally, he
got to a place in the south where the people of the Yi
nationality lived.
 "It's very easy to cure this illness," said a doctor
there.
Mr. Qin was overjoyed and asked the doctor to help
him at once.
The doctor went up the mountain and gathered a
kind of flower. He asked Mr. Qj.n to decoct and take
it. Half a month later, his nose stopped festering. He
was very glad.
"This kind of medicinal herb is really effective. Can
you allow that I take some with me? If I have an
16 attack of myoId illness, I needn't come such a long
way for it," said the patient.
"It's better to give you some seeds instead," replied
the doctor.
Mr. Qj.n was happy. After thanking the doctor by
giving him many gifts, he went home with the seeds
and planted them in his yard. A few years later,
many of these plants were growing there, and he
would cure anyone who suffered from nose illness
with this medicinal herb.
"What's its name?" someone asked him.
Hearing this, he was sorry that he had forgotten
to ask the doctor. But because he thought that it was
introduced to him in the year of Xinhai (in 1911), he
named it "xin yi" - the medicinal herb introduced to
him by a Yi doctor in the year of Xinhai.

OLJLJLJtj[!] [I]
LJOO~[!][!]

17
 NAME
English name: Mulberry Leaf
Pharmaceutical name: Folium May;

NAT URE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, sweet and co ld

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Expels wind and clears heat
2. Clears the lung and moistens
dryness

4 3. Calms liver yang

4 . Clears the liver and brightens the
eyes
5 . Reduces blood pressure levels,
blood cholesterol, etc.

INDICATIONS
1. Common cold due to externally con-
tracted wind heat, manifested as
fever , dizziness and headache,
cough, pain and swelling of the
throat
2. Cough due to lung heat and to
dampness heat
3. Conjunctivitis, dizziness due to
hyperactivity of liver yang

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-12g, decocted in water for oral use ,
or wash the eyes with the decoc -
tion (to brighten the eyes)

18
 long time ago, on a mountain called Yaoshan,
lived a single mother and her son. The son
was a nice lad; his name was Damu. He always took
good care of his mother. They made their living by
growing crops, and their life was not bad.
One fall, after a lot of rains, the mother was ill in
bed. She felt dizzy and was coughing every day. To 19
cure his mother, Damu went everywhere to find the
right medicines. However, although half a month
passed, the mother was still very ill, and Damu was
very upset.
One day, Damu was told that there was a monk
who practiced medicine during his free time, and
who lived in a temple on Yaoshan. Damu was so hap-
py about the good news that he wanted to carry his
mother on his back to see the monk. However, his
mother would not go because she thought it was too
far to go and that it would definitely hurt her son's
back to carry her.
 "My son, you've already too tired from searching
for herbs. Yaoshan is a big mountain; the road to the
temple is pretty steep, and it's impossible for you to
carry me by yourself."
"No problem, Mom. If I am tired, we could rest. I
have heard that that monk is really good at medicine.
He knows lots of prescriptions."
"Son, I believe you. But I couldn't walk there by
myself, and the temple is too far away for you to carry
me. You will get hurt if you take me there on your
20 back. Maybe you can go to see the monk first, and
bring back the herbs. Let's try that, ok?"
"Mom ... "
"Just do as I say. Don't worry about me. I can take
care of myself."
Before starting out, Damu boiled water and put it
in a big container for his mother to drink. However,
he forgot to put the lid on the container because he
left in a hurry. A few hours later, the mother was
thirsty and wanted to drink some water. When she
reached the container, she found there were several
mulberry leaves inside it. She told herself: "The wind
in the fall is really strong; it blew so many leaves into
this water." After drinking the water, the old lady
went to sleep.
When she woke up, she felt better, and the pain in
her head was greatly relieved. She drank another cup
of water.
It was sunset. The white clouds in the sky were
dyed almost red by the sunlight, as was Yaoshan.
What a beautiful scene!
At this time, Damu came back. Sweat was pouring
down his face when he opened the door.
"Are you ok, Mom?" 21
"I feel better now. Did you get the medicine?"
"Bad luck. The monk wasn't in the temple when I
got there. He had gone somewhere else. I will go to
see him tomorrow."
"You look tired. Eat your dinner and go to bed
early."
"I am ok. Let's have our dinner."
"I don't want to eat. It's strange. I feel better after
drinking the water, and I want more of it."
The next morning, after getting up, the mother
told Damu she was recovered and wanted to take a
walk. Damu was totally confused: "Mom, did you eat
 some medicine?"
"Not at all. I just drank some water."
"Did you put something into the water?"
"Nothing but a few mulberry leaves, which had
been blown into the container."
Looking at the leaves in the water, Damu couldn't help
but wonder that maybe the mulberry leaves cured
his mother's illness.
After eating breakfast, Damu boiled water, picked
some leaves from the mulberry tree and put them
22 into the water. He then went to see the monk.
The monk first asked a lot of detailed questions
about his mother's illness. Then the monk told Damu
that he could put some "frost" mulberry leaves (leaves
gathered after a frost) into water and boil it.
Damu was so excited when he was told this pre-
scription, because he finally understood that the
"frost" mulberry leaves were actually an effective
herb, and that was why his mother had recovered by
drinking the water.

DLJ~~~~[!][!J[I][I]
D~~ElITl
23
 NAME
English name : Bupleurum
Pharmaceutical name: Radix Bup/euri

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent, bitter and slightly cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver and Gallbladder

ACTIONS
1. Releases the exterior and abates
fever
2. Soothes liver qi and resolves con -

5 straint
3. Raises yang qi

INDICATIONS ·
1. Shaoyang heat syndrome
2. Liver constraint and qi stagnation
3. Sinking of qi and visceral prolapse
due to qi deficiency

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

3-9g ., decocted in water for oral use

24
 u was a candidate who had succeeded in the
highest imperial examination; and he had a
farmhand named Er Man.
In the autumn of one year, Er Man suffered from
a warm pathogen disease which caused him to be
continuously either cold or feverish. When he was
cold, he shivered all over; and when he was hot, he 25
sweated all over. Hu saw that Er Man couldn't work
for him, and he was afraid that his family members
would also be infected with the disease.
"Er Man, I don't need you. You are fired!" he said.
"Master, I have no family or friends to go to. Besides,
I am seriously ill. Where can I go?" said Er Man.
"It's not my business: when you work one day for
me, I give you food for one day. You can do nothing
now, so I will not give money to a useless man like
you."
"1 have worked very hard these days. How can you
be so cruel? Let others judge this matter!"
 On hearing this, Hu was afraid that when the other
farmhands heard this, they wouldn't want to work
for him. So he quickly corrected himself.
"Er Man, now you should go out to find a place to
stay for a while. When you have recovered, you can
come back again. Here is your pay. Please take it and
leave!"
Er Man could do nothing, so he left Hu's land. As
soon as he left, he felt sometimes cold, sometimes hot
all over his body and he had pain in his legs so that
26 every step was a struggle for him. Dizzily, he came
to the side of a pool. There was a little water inside it
and its edge was overgrown with weeds, thick reeds
and small willows. Because he could no longer move,
he lay down on the overgrown weeds.
After a day, he felt very thirsty and hungry. Without
any strength, he couldn't even stand up. So he dug up
some grass roots with his hands to eat. In this way,
he kept alive for seven days, eating only grass roots.
Seven days passed, and all the grasses around him
were eaten. He tried to stand up.
Suddenly he felt strong. So, he returned to Hu's
land. When Hu saw him, he frowned.
 "Why have you come back?" he asked. "Are you all
right?"
"Yes, I will go to work now."
Er Man went to the fields with a hoe on his shoul-
der, and Hu had nothing to say. From then on, Er
Man never had a relapse of this disease.
Some days later, Hu's son fell sick from this same
disease. Hu had only this one son, and he loved him
very much. So he sent for many doctors, but none
could cure the disease.
Suddenly he remembered Er Man and went to find
him.
"When you were ill some days ago, what medicine
did you have?" he asked.
"Master, I had no medicine."
"If that is so, then how was your disease cured?"
"It was cured by itself."
Hu didn't believe him. "You must have eaten some-
thing. Tell me at once!"
"After I left your house, I went to the pool outside
the village and fell down there. When I was thirsty
and hungry, I dug up some grass roots and ate
them."
 "Which grass roots?"
"The grass roots that you use as firewood."
"Lead me there at once!"
"All right!"
Er Man led Hu to the side of the pool. He dug up
some of the grass roots that he had eaten and gave
them to Hu. Hu went home quickly and ordered
someone to wash and decoct them. Then he let his
son drink the medicinal liquid. After his son drank
this for a few days, his disease was cured.
28 Hu was very glad. He named the medicinal herb
"chai hU", because it was originally used as firewood -
"chaj" in Chinese - and because his family name was
Hu.

CJ~~~EJEJ~~~[I]
[J~00[!]~[!n]~~
 29

~
y ..

I
."
'
 NAME
English name : Kudzu vine Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix Puerariae
Lobatae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet, pungent and cool

CHANNELS ENTERED
Spleen and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Abates feve r
2. Promotes eruption of rashes

6 3.
4.
Engenders fluid to relieve thirst
Uplifts yang to relieve diarrhea

INDICATIONS
1. Pain of the neck and back due to
evil heat invading the exterior
2. Unerupted measles
3. Heat diarrhea or dysentery
4 . Diabetes of yin deficiency and thirst
of febrile disease

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-1 5g . decocted in water for oral use

30
 n a remote and thickly forested mountain
lived an old man who dug up medicinal herbs.
One day, he heard people shouting from below. He
craned his neck to look into the valley. Soon, a boy of
about 14 years old came; climbing stones and going
around trees, who ran straight to the old man and
knelt down before him. 31
"Old grandpa, please save me. They want to kill
me," begged the boy as he kowtowed like a hen peck-
ing at millet.
"Who are you?"
"I am the son of Lord Ge. There are treacherous
court officials in our court who brought false charges
against my father that he had conspi'red to rise up in
rebellion. The foolish king believed this, and ordered
soldiers to surround my home and kill my whole
family."
"My father said to me, 'You are our only son. If you
are killed, our family won't live through its descen-
 dants so you must run away. When you grow up, you
will be the root of our family.'"
"So I had to run away. But now the troops have
found me. Old grandpa, if you save me, it means that
you will save my whole family."
The old man thought that since Lord Ge had been
an official who was loyal to his sovereign for many
years, he should save his son, but the troops were
coming nearer and nearer. He looked back up at the
mountain.
32 "Stand up and follow me!"
The boy followed the old man to a secret cave in
the remote mountain and hid there. The government
troops searched the mountain for three days, but
they could not find the boy.
When the old man led the boy out of the cave, he
asked,"Where will you go?"
"My whole family has been arrested and they will
all be killed. Since you have saved me, I will serve
you during my lifetime. When you die, I will wear
mourning clothes for you. Will you take me in?"
"Certainly!" said the old man. "You can live with
me. But I am a man who gathers medicinal herbs. Ev-
ery day I have to climb the mountain. You won't be
as comfortable as when you were a young master in
your family."
"I can bear all kinds of suffering as long as I am
alive."
From that time on, the son of Lord Ge climbed the
mountain every day to gather medicinal herbs with
the old man. The old man always gathered the same
grass which had root tubers and could cure fever,
thirst, and diarrhea.
A few years later the old man died. The son of Lord 33
Ge had learnt his skills. He too dug up the medici-
nal herb with root tubers and used it to cure many
diseases. This medicinal herb never had a name, so
when people asked, he thought of his own experi-
ence, and replied:"1t's called 'Ge gen'."
This meant that the whole family of Lord Ge was
killed except for him, its root.

LJLJLJLJEJDEJ[!J~~~
~
[Jrnrnrn[f][t][f]ffi][mrID
 NAME
English name : Common Anemarrhena
Rhizome
Pharmaceutical name : Radix Anemar-
rhenae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, sweet and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung, Stomach and Kidney

ACTIONS
1. Clears away heat and drains fire

7 2. Engenders the fluids and moistens

dryness
3. Clears heat to eliminate vexation
4. Allays thirst

INDICATIONS
1. Febrile disease with vexation and
th i rs t
2. Constipation due to intestinal
dryness
3. Dry cough due to lung heat
4 . Hectic fever due to steaming bone
disorder
5. Diabetes due to internal heat

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-12g. , decocted in water for oral use

34
 ong, long ago there was an old woman who
had no children. She had gathered medicinal
herbs since she was young, but because she always
gave them to people without charging, she had not
saved money. When she was old and weak, and could
no longer climb the mountain to gather medicinal
herbs, she had to beg from village to village. She 35
worried all day, not because of her bitter life, but be-
cause she could not pass on her skills of recognizing
medicinal herbs, and once she died, who else could
gather herbal medicine for the people? So, the old
woman was determined to look for an honest man to
whom to pass on her skills. She said to all she met:
"Whoever takes me as his mother, I will tell him
how to recognize medicinal herbs."
The son of a rich family heard this and thought,
"If I could cure disease, won't it be another way to
fawn on high officials?" Therefore, he invited the old
woman to join his family.
 "Old lady, 1 am willing to be your son. Please tell
me what medicinal herbs can cure disease!" he said.
The old woman gave the rich son a quick look and
asked, "Why are you in such a hurry? First, 1 will see
how you treat me."
The rich son had the old woman live in a good
house and gave her new clothes and served her good
food. But after ten days, when the rich son saw that
the old woman didn't speak of medicinal herbs he
could no longer restrain himself.
"Mother, you should tell me how to recognize me-
dicinal herbs."
"It's still too early."
"How long must 1 wait?"
"About ten years!"
"What?" the rich son was angry. "I have to provide
you with food for ten years? Humph! Go away and
don't cheat me any longer!"
Sneering, the old woman put her original clothes
back on and unhurriedly left the rich son's home.
Again, she begged and shouted on the street as be-
fore.
One day a merchant heard her. As he thought that
he could make a lot of money by selling medicine, he
called to the old woman at once.
"I am willing to take you as my mother!" he said,
so then the old woman lived in the merchant's house.
After the merchant had served her for one month, he
could no longer keep calm.
"Can you really recognize herbal medicine?" he
asked.
"Certainly!"
"Please teach me how to do it!"
"It's not yet the proper time." 37
"How long should I wait?"
"Until I die!"
"Oh!" The merchant shook all over with anger. "You
devil woman! Do you think I am a monkey? Return to
begging!"
"It's you who invited me!"
"Humph! I was blind!"
After the old woman was driven out of the mer-
chant's house, she went on begging and groaning.
"Whoever takes me as his mother, I will tell him
how to recognize medicinal herbs," she muttered.
Days passed, people thought she was mad and no
 one spoke to her.
One winter, when the old woman had arrived in a
small village, she fell down before a gate. The master
of this family was a boatman, and he helped the old
woman into his house.
"Old lady, what's wrong with you? Are you hurt?
Are you ill?" he asked.
"No, I'm not ill. I am hungry."
Immediately the boatman asked his wife to cook a
pot of soup and brought it to her.
38 "We have no good food at home. Please have this
while it's hot."
After the old woman ate, she began to feel warm
and wanted to go.
"Where are you going on such a cold day?" asked
the boatman and his wife.
"Oh." The old woman heaved a deep sigh, "I am so
poor that I have to beg."
On hearing this, both the boatman and his wife felt
sympathy for her.
"You are so old, and it's not easy for you to beg.
If you don't mind our poverty, please stay with us!"
they told her.
 The old woman didn't refuse and she stayed. Time
flew. Spring came and the flowers began to blossom.
"How can I always eat food in your house? Please
let me go on," said the old woman.
"You have no children and we have no parents. Isn't it
a good thing that we live together as a family?" asked
the boatman.
"To tell you the truth, previously I gathered medic-
inal herbs. I knew many kinds which could cure dis-
eases and save people's lives. I had wanted to adopt a
son so I could pass on my skills. But now I am too old
and muddled to recognize any of those herbs. Now
you are taking care of me, but I have no way to repay
you," said the old woman.
"We are all poor people. I don't need to be repaid.
As long as we have food to eat, you won't be hungry.
Please don't go out begging!" said the boatman.
"All right. I will take this place as my home and
you as my son."
From that time on, the boatman and his wife re-
garded the old woman as their own mother. The old
woman helped them take care of the children and to
do some housework. They loved the old woman too.
Because she didn't want the old woman to be too hot
or too cold, the boatman's wife wouldn't let her start
fires in June nor wash clothes in December. The old
woman lived there comfortably for three years.
When summer came that third year, she was al-
ready 80 years old.
"My son, 1 want to climb up the mountain to look
around," she said one day.
"Mother, you are too old. You will get tired!"
"I feel very bored, so 1 want to have a look at the
mountain scenery."
"Let me carry you there on my back."
When the boatman carried the old woman up the
mountain on his back, sometimes she wanted to go
east and then west, up the slope and down the valley.
The boatman became very tired and he sweated a lot,
but instead of getting upset, he joked to make her
happy.
When they came to a slope where wild grass was
growing, the old woman asked the boatman to stop.
She got down, sat on a stone, and pointed at a bundle
of grass with striped leaves and white flowers with
purple stripes.
 "Go dig it up," she said.
The boatman went there and dug at it until a yel-
lowish-brown root appeared.
"Mother, what is this?" he asked.
"This is a medicinal herb. Its root can cure lung
heat, coughing, consumption, fever, and so on.
It's very useful. My son, 1 think you know why 1 didn't
teach you how to recognize it before."
After thinking a while, the boatman said, "You
must have wanted to find an honest man to whom
you could pass on your skills. You were afraid that if 41
a bad man learned them, he would only make a pile
of money and cheat people."
"I have searched for such a man for many years, but
found no one. My son, you really understand what 1
think. So 1 name this medicinal herb zhi mii - for know-
ing one's mother," said the old woman with a smile.
Then she taught the boatman to recognize many
other medicinal herbs. He began to gather them, and
he always remembered her words and cured poor
people's diseases as the old woman had done.
D[j0[IJrnlliJ~~
~~[!][iJ~
 NAME ···· .......................... .
English name : Reed Rhizome
Pharmaceutical name: Rhizome
Phragmitis

NATURE AND FLAVOR · . . . ..... ... .

Sweet and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED " ............ .

Lung and Stomach

ACTIONS " ............ .

1. Clears away heat and drains fire
2. Engenders the fluids and allays thirst

8 3. Eleminates vexation and arrests

vomiting
4. Disinhibits urine

INDICATIONS
1. Febrile disease with vexation
2. Hiccough due to stomach heat
3. Heat strangury and rough pain
4. Cough due to lung heat and vomiting
of pus due to pulmonary welling
abscess

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

1 5-30g., decocted in water for oral
use.

42
 outh of the Yangtse River there was a moun-
tain area where a shop owner sold raw herbal
medicines. Since his shop was the only one in 100
square miles, the owner became the local tyrant.
Whoever fell ill had to buy his medicine and pay as
much as the shop owner wanted.
One day, a poor man's boy had a high fever and 43
was seriously ill. When the man went to the medical
shop, the owner said that the boy must eat antelope's
horn. Only a little amount cost ten liang of silver.
"Please sell it cheaper. It's so expensive that we
poor people can't afford it," said the poor man.
"If you can't buy it, then I don't want to sell it and
you can't have it," replied the owner.
The poor man could do nothing but return to cry
by his son's bedside.
At that time, two beggars entered the man's house.
When they learnt that the poor man's son had a high
fever and he couldn't afford to buy the shop's medi-
 cine, they offered to help.
"The antelope's horn is not the only thing that can
bring down your son's fever," they said.
"Is there something cheaper?" asked the man.
"There is one medicine which is free."
"What medicine?"
"You can go to the side of the pool to pick some 'Iii
gen' - reed rhizome - to eat."
"Will it work?"
"Certainly!"
44 The poor man hurried to the pool and dug up
some fresh Iii gen. He went home and decocted it for
his son to drink the liquid. Mter the boy's fever went
down, the poor man was so glad that he made friends
with the beggars.
From that time on, when people in that place had
fever, they never went to the medical shop for medi-
cine, and so "Iii gen" become a Chinese medicine.

EJEJEJEJ[!][!][E]
[Jrnrnrn[£]lr]~rm[mlm
45

'c"
b
 NAME ·'
English name: Common Selfheal spike
Pharmaceutical name : Spica Prunellae

NATURE AND FLAVOR " ............. .

Bitter, pungent, and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver and Gallbladder

ACTIONS , ......
1. Clears away heat and purges fire
2. Brightens the eyes
3. Dissipates stagnation to resolve

9 swelling
4 . Brings blood pressure down

INDICATIONS . . ..
1. Conjunctivitis, distention pain,
headache and dizziness
2. Hypertension
3. Scrofula and goiter
4 . Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB)

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION · ....

9-1 5g, decocted in water for oral use .

46
 Xia Ku Cao

here was a scholar whose mother suffered

from scrofula. Her neck was thickly swollen
and pus flowed from it. Everyone said that it was
difficult to cure, so the scholar was worried.
One day a doctor came by, selling medicine.
"On the mountain there is a kind of medicinal herb
that can cure your mother's disease," said the doctor. 47
Immedia!ely the scholar asked the doctor for help.
The doctor climbed the mountain, and gathered
some wild grass with purple flower spikes. He cut off
the spikes and decocted them for the scholar's mother
to drink. A few days later the festering place began
to heal and then the disease was cured. The old lady
was so glad that she told her son to invite the doctor
to stay at their home. They treated the doctor well
and thanked him by giving him many gifts, which
the doctor didn't refuse. During the days, he went
out to gather and sell medicinal herbs and he slept at
the scholar's home at night. The scholar often had a
 chat with the doctor and slowly become interested in
medical knowledge.
A year later, the doctor went home.
"I have been here for a year. How much should I
pay you for the food?" he asked the scholar before he
left.
"You've cured my mother's disease. The food is
nothing."
"Well, in that case I will teach you how to recognize
that medicinal herb."
48 Leading the scholar up the mountain, he pointed
at a kind of wild grass with long round leaves and
purple flowers.
"This is the medicinal herb that can cure scrofula.
Please observe it carefully," said the doctor.
"I have," said the scholar after looking at it care-
fully.
"But you must remember that after summer, the
grass will be nowhere to be seen."
"Yes. I will keep it in mind."
Two months passed, and then at the beginning of
autumn of that year, the county official's mother suf-
fered from the same scrofula. The official pasted up
a 'big character' poster to invite doctors to treat her.
On seeing this, the scholar at once tore it down and
went to the county official's home.
"I can gather medicinal herbs to cure scrofula," he
said.
The county official sent people up the mountain
with the scholar. But much to his surprise, he couldn't find
the herb with long round leaves and purple flowers,
not even on the nearby mountains. So he was taken
back to the County Hall by the runners. The county
official thought that he was a fraud, and he ordered 49
his runners to beat the scholar fifty times with a big
plank of wood.
The next summer, the doctor returned. When the
scholar caught sight of him, he seized him at once.
"What a bitter life you've given me!" said the schol-
ar.
"What's the matter?" asked the doctor.
"I can't find the medicinal herb you taught me to
recognize."
"Of course you can find it."
"Where?"
"On the mountains."
 So they went to the mountain. Strangely, they
found that wild grass everywhere, over hill and dale.
The scholar was puzzled by this.
"Why is it that it can be seen now, when you come
here?"
"Didn't I tell you that it would die after summer? If
you want to use it, you have to gather some earlier."
Hearing this, the scholar recalled what the doctor
had told him, and he realized that he himself was to
be blamed for his carelessness. To keep this in mind
50 the scholar called the herb "xia kii cao" - the herb
that dies at the end of summer.

LJLJ~~~~[!][!J~OO
LJrnrnrnlB[E]rmrm~
EJEJEJ[:]EJ~[!][!][!]
 51

/
 NAME
English name: Coptis Rhizome
Pharmaceutical name: Rhizoma Coptidis

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter and cold

~I CHANNELS ENTERED
Heart , Spleen, Liver, Stomach , and
Large Intestine

ACTIONS
1. Clears away heat and dries dampness
2. Purge s fire and resolves toxin

10 INDICATIONS
1. Abdominal fullness and distention
2. Damp-heat dysentery
3. Vomiting and acid reflu x
4 . Clouded consciousness with high
fever
5. Ve x ation and sleeplessness, blood -
heat epista x is
6. Carbuncle swelling, furunc le, red
eyes and toothache
7. Diabete s and eczema
8. Otopyorrhea

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

2-Sg ., decocted for oral use ; amounts
as appropriate for external use

52
 -tl!
t-IIA 6 V\9 Li 6 V\

long time ago, in the mountain of Bamount,

lived renowned Doctor Tao who had a beautiful
garden where he grew hundreds of medicinal herbs.
One day, Doctor Tao left town to see patients. Before
leaving, he hired a helper, Mr. Huang, to take care of
his garden.
It was a freezing morning in January. Along the 53
road to the garden, Mr. Huang found lots of little
wild plants with beautiful greenish white flowers.
They were so beautiful, especially in cold wintertime,
that Mr. Huang could not help moving those pretty
little things into the garden.
Doctor Tao had a lovely daughter whose name
was Meijuan. One day she suddenly fell ill: she felt
a sensation of dry heat, and she also had symptoms
of vomiting and diarrhea. Three days later, she was
in a coma. Several doctors came to cure her disease,
but left without result. The worst sign was blood in
Meijuan's stool. She was almost at death's door, and
 no one knew how to save her.
By chance, Mr. Huang remembered those pretty
flowers; and he thought that maybe those wild plants
could help. Immediately he rushed to the garden,
dug up some of those plants and their roots, washed
and boiled them with water. Then he had Meijuan
drink the boiled water. A few hours later, Meijuan
felt much better. After drinking it twice more, Mei-
juan unexpectedly recovered.
When Doctor Tao returned home, he asked about
54 his daughter's symptoms and then knew that her
disease was the accumulation of heat in the intestine
and stomach. The method to cure it was to clear away
heat and toxin. Therefore, he knew that those plants
must have those actions. After many clinical trials,
Doctor Tao concluded that this kind of plant was the
medicinal herb for clearing away heat and toxins.
Because the helper's name was Huang Lian, Doctor
Tao named this herb huang Jian to commemorate him.
Since then, huang Jian has joined the big family of me-
dicinal herbs. For Meijuan, Mr. Huang was the real
hero who saved her life. Doubtless, she married Mr.
Huang shortly after the incident.
LJ[:Jc:JEl~[!J[!J[!][!][!]OO
LJ~0rn[!]G!J~

55
 NAME
English name : Honeysuckle Flower
Pharmaceutical name : Flos Lonicerae
japonicae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung, Heart and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Clears away heat and resolve toxin
2. Disperses wind and heat

11 INDICATIONS
1. External contracted wind -heat, the
onset of warm disease
2. Carbuncle and clove sores
3. Bleeding due to heat toxin

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-15g., decoct the drug in water for
oral use

56
 nce upon a time, a kind young couple lived
in a village. The year after their marriage, the
wife gave birth to a pair of lovely twin girls. They
were very glad and named the twins Jin Hua and Yin
Hua.
As, Jin Hua and Yin Hua were growing up, they
were always together. They got along with each other 57
very well and could do embroidery and speak intel-
ligently. So their parents, neighbors and all the other
villagers loved them very much.
When they were 18 years old, they were as beauti-
ful as flowers. People approached their parents one
after another offering to act as matchmakers. But
neither of the girls wanted to get married, for they
were afraid of being separated. They made a private
vow: "Alive, we share the same bed; dead, we share
the same grave." So their parents did not marry them
off.
But the good times did not last long. One day Jin
 Hua suddenly fell ill. She had a high fever and ery-
thema all over her body. Soon she could no longer
get out of bed. Her parents sent for a doctor. The
doctor examined the patient and felt her pulse.
"My God! This is heat-toxin disease! We have never
been able to cure this disease, not even in the old
days. There is nothing we can do for her," said the
doctor.
When Yin Hua learnt that her elder sister's disease
could not be cured, she stayed beside her all day
58 long weeping her heart out.
"Please keep away from me. My illness is conta-
gious," Jin hua said.
"How I wish I could suffer instead of you! Why
should I be afraid of this contagious disease!" asked
Yin Hua.
"If I die, you should live on."
"Why do you forget our vow? If you die, I will not
live either."
A few days later, Jin Hua's illness became more
serious and Yin Hua stayed in bed too, having also
caught the disease. Both of them told their parents
their last wish.
 "After our death, we will become the medicinal
herb that can cure this particular kind of disease. We
won't let other people suffer from it too," they said.
Later they died at the same time. The villagers
helped their parents bury them in the same grave.
When spring came the next year, all the grass
began to sprout. Except on this grave, no grass
appeared, but only a small vine. When it began to
blossom in summer, the flowers appeared first white
and then yellow, white alternating with yellow. The
villagers were very surprised. When they recalled 59
the words of Jin Hua and Yin Hua, they picked these
flowers and made them into a medicine to cure the
acute heat-toxin disease. This medicine proved to be
really effective. And since then, people have called
this kind of vine ''jin yin hua".

0~~El~[±l~~
D000rn[iJ[1:J~lmrm~
EJEJEJtJlLJ~[ill
 NAME
English name: Dande lion
Pharmaceutical name : Herba Tarxaci

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, sweet and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Clears away heat and reso lves tox in
2. Re lieves swelling to d issipate
indurated masses

12 3. Eliminates damp to relieve stranguria

INDICATIONS
1. Astringing pain due to heat stran -
guria, jaundice due to damp heat
2. Carbunc le swe ll ing and sore toxin,
breast abscess

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-1 5g. , appropriate amou nt for external
use.

60
 1i~~
Pu cAoV\9 V'V\9

here was a young lady in an old landlord's

family who suffered from mastitis. Her breast
was red and swollen, and the pain made her fidgety.
She didn't want anybody to know because she felt
shy. So she forced herself to bear the pain. When her
servant girl found out about it she immediately told
the old lady of the family. 61
"My young lady is ill. Please send for a doctor at
once!" she said.
"1 haven't heard of an unmarried girl suffering
from mastitis before. Has she done something shame-
ful?" the mother thought. She seized the servant girl
and slapped her in the face.
"How can your young lady get this kind of disease?
Where has she been? Whom has she met?" she asked.
"My young lady has never been out of the gate.
How can she have met anyone outside?" replied the
servant girl.
Then the old lady ran upstairs and pointed at her
 daughter's nose and scolded her. "How could you get
such a scandalous disease? You have shamed your
parents !" she shouted.
When the young lady understood what her mother
was implying, she was ashamed and angry. But she
could not clearly explain the situation. She could
only weep.
That night, she worried, "I am in pain, but my
mother suspects that 1 am immoral. And even if a
doctor comes, how can 1 show him my breast?" When
62 her servant girl was asleep, she silently went down-
stairs and out the back gate. Then she jumped into
the river without hesitation.
Near the shore was a fishing boat where a man
and his daughter were casting a net by the moon-
light. The girl immediately jumped into the river to
save the young lady. When she brought her up to the
boat, she dressed her in her own dry clothes. In do-
ing so, she discovered the girl's mastitis and told her
father about it.
"Tomorrow you must go dig up a certain medicinal
herb for her," said the old fisherman.
The next day his daughter fetched a medicinal
herb with long sawtooth leaves and puffballs. She de-
cocted it and had the girl drink the medicinal liquid.
A few days later, the girl's disease was cured.
After the landlord and his wife heard that their
daughter had jumped into the river, they knew that
they had mistakenly accused her. They were over-
come with regret, so they sent people out to look for
her everywhere. The young lady wept as she said
good-bye to the fisherman and his daughter. The old
fisherman had the young lady take some more of
the medicinal herb home and told her to decoct it to 63
drink when the disease returned.
The young lady knelt at the feet of the old fisherman
and kowtowed to him three times. Then she went home.
The young lady had the servant girl plant the me-
dicinal herb in her flower garden. To remember the
fisherman and his daughter, the young lady named
the medicinal herb "pli gong ying" because the old
fisherman's daughter's name was "Pu Gongying."
Ever since, the news that "pli gong ying" cures mastitis
has spread everywhere.

EJEJEJEJEJ[LJlalliJ0]~~
~~
0[2j~~
EJEJEJEJ~[!J[!]OO
 ,, ,, ~ \
\
"
\I NAME
English name : Violet
Pharmaceutical name : Herba Violae

NATURE AND FLAVOR ... .. . ...... .

Bitter, pungent and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Heart and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Clears heat and resolves toxin
2. Cools blood and disperses swelling

13 INDICATIONS
1. Deep-rooted boil with welling toxin,
mammary swelling abscesses
2. Poisonous snake bite
3. Enteritis, dysentery
4. Jaundice
5. Searl et feve r

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

1 5-30g., decocted in water for oral use; or
appropriate amounts for external
use

64
 here were two beggars who went begging to-
gether from village to village. As their friend-
ship grew, they became sworn brothers.
One day, one of the younger brothers fingers was
red and swollen. It hurt so much that he was very
agitated.
The elder brother was worried. He thought that if 65
his brother didn't see a doctor soon, his finger would
fester and fall off. So he took his younger brother to
a doctor.
Not far away stood Dongyang town. In the town
there was a medical shop named "}ishengtang", a place
where patients were treated. The shop sold medicines
made there, particularly a medicine used to cure
sores. The two brothers went to "lishengtang".
"You can use my medicine, but you must pay me
five liang of silver first," said the owner of the shop
when he saw that they were beggars.
How could beggars have silver? Of course they
 didn't, so they kneeled at the counter.
"Master, please take pity on us! Please save my
younger brother. He can't bear the pain!" said the elder
brother.
"Go away! My shop is not open to beggars!" said
the owner angrily while he drove them away with a
broom.
Hearing the shouting, the neighbors all came to see
what was happening.
"The sore has nearly killed him. Please be merciful
66 and give him some pain-killers," said someone.
"Go away!" angrily said the owner. "My medicine is
not made for free!"
"Master, your signboard is clearly written with the
words '}ishengtang' to mean the saving of lives. Right?"
"To save people's lives, but not beggars'!" shouted
the owner.
"There is a temple to go to. Do you think my finger
can only be saved here in your shop?" angrily asked
the younger beggar.
"If anyone else within a distance of one hundred
miles can cure your sores, then you can crush my
'}ishengtang' signboard," boasted the shopowner with
a loud laugh.
The two beggars turned away and left the town. When
they got to a mountain slope, they sat down to rest. But
the younger beggar really couldn't bear the pain.
"Elder brother, I beg you to push me into water to
be drowned or strangle me with a rope, so you can
help me finish such a hell of a life," he said.
"My younger brother, please hold out a little
longer. However much it aches, you must live."
The sun was setting and shining over the mountain
slope. A purple flower appeared brightly in the sun- 67
shine. The elder brother picked a few of them and
put them into his mouth to chew. It tasted a little
bitter so he spat them out on his hand. Just then, his
younger brother grasped his hands.
"Elder brother, my finger feels terribly hot. I can't
stand the pain," he said.
Looking around, the elder brother found no cold
water. So he put the petals that he had just spat out
onto his brother's finger.
"Let these wet petals cool your finger first," he told
him.
Then they sat closely together for a while.
 "Elder brother, my finger is cool. It's getting bet-
ter," happily said the sick man.
After a little while, his finger stopped aching.
"Oh, perhaps these purple flowers are a medicinal
herb that can cure sores!" said the elder brother,
happily slapping his hands together. Then he quickly
picked a basket of them with their leaves and roots.
Returning to the old temple, they divided the
purple grass into two parts. One part was pounded
to a plaster for external use and the other was de-
68 cocted for internal use. After taking this medicine,
the younger brother slept well that night. The next
morning, the swelling and pain had disappeared; and
two days later, the sores were completely cured.
On the third morning, the two brothers ran to the
"Dongyang" street with two iron sticks and smashed
the "Jishengtang" signboard to pieces.
"You stood right here and said that no other doc-
tor could cure my younger brother's sores and that if
anyone could, then we might smash your signboard,"
the elder beggar said to the owner.
"Please look! The sores on my finger have been
cured!" said the younger man, showing his hand to
everyone.
The sound of smashing the shop's signboard at-
tracted all the neighbors to watch the fun. They all
agreed that it was right to smash it. Knowing that he
was in the wrong, the shop owner closed his door
and didn't dare to come outside.
The two brothers then threw away their begging
sticks, and climbed up the mountain with baskets on
their backs to gather more of the medicinal herb for
curing sores. They were very generous, and gave it to
everyone they met. A few years later, the "lishengtang" 69
medicine for sores could no longer be sold. It was
said that the shopowner's heirs became beggars.
Later the beggars wanted to give the medicinal
herb a name. They called it "zI hua di ding" because its
stem was like an iron nail (di ding) and at its top blos-
somed a few purple flowers (zI hua).

CJCJCJ~EJEJEl~[!]~[f]
~
uEJEJ~[iJ[£]lill
D[IJ[I][B~~
EJrn
 NAME ········· ...................... .
Eng lish name : Puff-ba ll
Pharmaceutical name : Lasiosphaera
seu Calvatia

NATURE AND FLAVOR ··· ............ .

Pungent and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED " .............. .

Lung

ACTIONS ·················· ........... .

1. Clears heat to resolve tox in
2. Relieves sore throat

14 3. Stanches bleeding

INDICATIONS '" . . .. . . .. . . . . . . .. . .....

1. Swollen throat, loss of voice due to
cough
2. Spontaneous bleeding
3. External b leed i ng due to trauma
(Oral or externa l use)

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION ·· ..

1.5-6g., appropriate dosage for external
use

70
 ne summer, Ma Bo and a few other boys went
up the mountain to cut fresh food for pigs.
One boy was careless, and scratched his calf on a tree
branch, so that it bled profusely. The boy cried out
with pain and the other boys were frightened.
"Don't cry! Press tightly on your wound and wait
for me to cure it," said Ma Bo. 71
Searching about on the mountain slope, he finally
found a gray-brown lump. He pressed it onto the
boy's wound, tied it with cloth strips, and then Ma
Bo carried him home on his back.
Three days passed. The boy took the cloth strips
off and saw that new delicate flesh had appeared.
Two days later, the wound was cured.
"How did you, who are so young, know how to stop
bleeding with that plant?"
"Look!" Ma Bo rolled up his trouser leg to show a
line of scar. "It was cured by the gray lump.
"Who told you that?"
 "Myself!" said Ma Bo. "Once I was cutting firewood
on the mountain and because I was careless, I cut
my leg and it began to bleed. It hurt so much that
I sweated all over my body. Just as I was thinking
that I might die, I saw a big gray lump beside me.
I quickly pressed it onto my wound and the bleed-
ing stopped right away. A few days later, it was all
healed. Later whenever my hands were cut or my
face was scratched, I used this plant to cure my
wounds."
72 From then on, whoever had a wound would come
to Ma Bo. If he could not find him, he would go up
the mountain himself to look for the big gray lump.
As time passed, "rna b6" became the name of the big
gray lump.
But what was this big gray lump? It was the fruit of
a kind of plant. When young, its shape was like a ball.
When ripe, it became dry and changed into the big
gray-brown lump. People came to know that it could
not only stop bleeding, but also clear lungs, reduce
fever and relieve the throat. As it was used more and
more, it became a famous Chinese medicine.
[2J~~
D~uo~rn[f][E]~

73
 NAME
English name : Chinese Pulsatilla Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix Pu/satillae

NATURE AND FLAVOR ' .............. .

Bitter and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Stomach and Large Intestine

ACTIONS
1. Clears heat to resolve toxin
2. Cools the blood to check dysentery

15 INDICATIONS
1. Dysentery with blood due to heat
toxin
2. Sore abscess with toxin swelling

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-15g. or 15·30g. as a maximum dosage,
decocted in water for oral or external
use

74
 B6i TOl{ WeV\9

nce a young man had a stomachache. It hurt

him so much that he was sweating all over his
body. He went to see a doctor with his hands on his
belly.
Unfortunately, when he got there the doctor was
out visiting other patients. So the young man had to
go back home and he fell down on his way. 75
Just then, a very old man with white hair and a
crutch came over to him.
"Why are you lying here?" asked the old man.
"I have a terrible stomachache!" replied the young
man.
"Why don't you see a doctor?"
"The doctor is out."
"Why don't you go to look for some medicine?"
"Where can I find it?"
"Isn't that a medicinal herb there beside you?"
"Where?" asked the young man quickly.
The old man pointed with his crutch at a wild grass
 with fruits and white down.
"Its roots are medicine. If you dig them up and
take three doses, your pain will be cured," said the
old man.
"Really?"
"You see, I am old. How can I tell a lie? This is a se-
cret recipe handed down from my ancestors."
The young man only half believed it. After a while,
when he felt a little better, he dug up some of the
grass and went home. In the afternoon, his belly
76 began aching again and his diarrhea became worse,
so he tried the the old man's cure. Washing the grass
roots clean and cutting them into pieces, he decocted
them, and in the evening he took a dose. The next
morning he took another dose and by the morning
of the third day, his stomach had stopped aching
and he was completely recovered from diarrhea. The
young man was very glad.
Later many of his neighbors also suffered from
dysentery. The young man went to the wasteland
outside the village to dig up this medicinal herb with
a shovel. When he had filled a basket with it, he came
back home and gave it to the patients. They all got
well after taking this medicine.
"When did you learn to cure this disease?" people
asked him.
The young man told them the story about how the
old man had passed on his folk prescription to him.
"Where is the old man from?" they asked.
"I forgot to ask him."
"What is the name of this medicinal herb?"
"The old man didn't tell me."
The young man regretted not asking the herb's name.
A few days later, he returned to the place where he 77
had met the old man to thank him personally. Just as
he arrived there, he saw a medicinal herb with white
down swinging slightly in the wind on a low bank of
earth among the fields. It looked just like an old man
with white hair!
"Ah, perhaps the southern immortal manifested
himself to me to pass on the prescription. We can't
let the following generations forget him. We will call
this grass 'bai tau weng' - the white-haired old man."
CJ[IJ[EJ@i]~
DDEl~~
CJLJElEl[E][tJlnlm~[iJ
 NAME ··' ....... .
English name : Purslane Herb
Pharmaceutical name : Herba Portulacae

NATURE AND FLAVOR , ............. .

Sour and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED ' ............... .

Large Intestine and Liver

ACTIONS , ....... .
1. Clears heat to resolve toxin
2. Cools blood and stanches bleeding
3. Checks dysentery

16 INDICATIONS " .. . . . . . .. . .. . .. ' ...

1. Diarrhea due to damp and heat
2. Dysentery with blood due to heat
toxin
3. Metrorrhagia and metrostaxis
4. Leukorrhea with reddish discharge
5. Carbuncle and boil due to heat toxin
6. Bloody stool

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION · ....

9-1 5g, decocted in water for oral use

78
 ~~-t
M 0. Ch, Xi a V\

long time ago, there was a family in which the

old mother managed all the family affairs. She
had three sons. They had all gotten married except
the third one because he was still young, so the old
woman bought him a child bride.
The bride was only 11 years old. Although she had
to wear worn-out clothes and to eat leftovers, she 79
had to do all the dirty and heavy work. Nonetheless,
the girl's first sister-in-law disliked her and she often
stirred things up and incited the mother to beat the
child bride, and everyone watched the fun. Only her
second sister-in-law was very kind to her. Every time
she saw the child bride being beaten, she would try
to calm down her mother-in-law by every means she
could.
That year the dysentery was epidemic, and many
villagers died of this illness. In time, the child bride
began suffering from diarrhea. Her first sister-in-law
was very much afraid of being infected by it.
 "The devil slave girl can't work now. What's the
use of her staying in this home?" she said to the old
mother.
Hearing this, the old woman decided to drive out
the child bride. And because she thought that if the
child bride didn't die, she could still work hard, so
she drove her off to the small hut in their vegetable
garden.
The child bride was broken-hearted. She thought
that since the old woman didn't treat her as a human
80 being and even her betrothed husband didn't think
about her, that there was no hope for her life. In the
vegetable garden was a well; she went to its side, and
she really wanted to jump into it.
Just then, her second sister-in-law ran over and
grabbed her.
"Younger sister, you are very young and still have
a long way to go. You shouldn't attempt suicide. I have
brought you a half pot of soup. Please drink it!"
"Tomorrow I will ask my husband to send for a
doctor to treat you," she said.
So the child bride gave up the idea of drowning
herself in the well and continued to live in the hut.
But her second sister-in-law didn't come the next day
nor the third day either. By then she had eaten all
the soup and was so hungry, that her eyes grew dim.
Although there were things that could be eaten in the
vegetable garden, she was afraid of the old woman
and she didn't dare to eat them without permission.
Finally, she was so hungry that she could no longer
stand it. She picked many wild vegetables from the
sides of the fields, and ate them after having boiled
them in the soup pot. After she had done this for two
days, she completely recovered from the illness. 81
When she felt a little stronger, she slowly went
home. From a long distance away, she saw that a
piece of coarse gunny cloth was hung on their gate.
Then she saw her betrothed husband come out of
the house wearing mourning clothes. When they met,
they stared blankly at each other.
"What has happened in our family?" asked the girl.
"What? Are you still alive?" asked the young man
in reply.
"Who are you in mourning for?"
"Our mother, first brother and first sister-in-law all
died of dysentery and our second sister-in-law is now
laid up with sickness too."
The child bride quickly ran into the house to see
her.
"How have you been recovered?" asked her sister-
in-law.
"I don't know."
"I couldn't go to see you. What did you eat?"
"I had some wild vegetables."
As she was saying this, the child bride suddenly
had an idea. Perhaps those wild vegetables could cure
the disease? She hurriedly ran back to the vegetable
garden and picked a lot of the wild vegetables. She
had them boiled and brought to her second sister-in-
law.
"Drink it, sister. 1 am all right because 1 have taken
wild vegetables," said the child bride.
After her second sister-in-law drank the wild veg-
etable soup, she got well too.
This kind of vegetable had leaves like horse teeth,
so people called them "rna chi xian (horseteeth ama-
ranth)." Later people all knew that "rna chi xian" could
be used for dysentery.
[2J[5J~
CJODEl[!][!J[I]~
EJEJEJ[!:]~[!][!]

83
 NAM E
English name: Swallowwort Root
Pharmaceutical name: Radix et Rhizoma
Cvnanchi Atrati

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, salty and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver and Kidney

ACTIONS
1. Clears heat and cools blood
2. Disinhibits urine to relieve stranguria

17 3. Resolves toxin to treat sores

INDICATIONS
1. Fever due to yin deficiency, post-
partum fever
2. Heat strangury, blood strangury
3. Sores and carbuncle with swelling
and toxin, poisonous snake bite,
swelling and pain of the throat
4. Fever from yin deficiency

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

4.5-9g., decocted in water for oral use

84
 B6iWei

uring wartime, people were afraid of soldiers

passing by. The defeated soldiers were like
bandits: they burned, killed, raped and looted,
and left nothing behind. If they won a battle, their
officers would reward them with a holiday, allowing
them to do anything bad that they wanted. So at that
time, when people heard that there was a battle, they 85
would escape from the soldiers. This was called "Pao-
fan."
One year there was a battle, and all the people ran
away from the neighboring villages. Only one man
who was suffering from illness was unable to run and
his wife stayed with him at home. They knew that
they would suffer if the troops came, but they would
have to trust to luck.
One night, while his wife was decocting medicinal
herbs, she heard someone knocking at the door.
"Elder brother, please open the door and save me!"
The voice was very sad. The man and his wife
talked it over, and then she opened the door and saw
a disheveled soldier. The soldier immediately knelt
down before them as soon as he entered the house.
"Elder brother and sister-in-law, please save me at
once!" he said.
"What's the matter with you?"
"We have been defeated! I am the only one who
is left. If you have some old clothes, please give me
some to change into or I will be killed if they seize
me."
The sick man was sorry for him. He asked his wife
to find a set of clothes for him to change into and the
sick man's wife helped throw the soldier's uniform
into their pool outside.
Not long afterwards, a group of soldiers and horses
came and surrounded the house. The head of the
group fiercely rushed in.
"Is anyone hiding in your house?" the leader
demanded.
"No."
"Who are these two men?"
"The one who is lying in bed is my husband. He is
ill. The other is the doctor I have sent for. You see, I
am decocting the medicine now," said the woman.
The leader kicked over the medicinal pot and ordered
his soldiers to pull the people outside the house,
and to give them a beating. The other soldiers
seized this opportunity to swarm into the house,
taking what they could and then setting it on fire
before leaving.
After the group of men had gone far away, the sol-
dier who had fled from calamity helped the sick man
and his wife put out the fire and to save some of the
heavy furniture. 87
"Elder brother and sister-in-law, you've suffered a
lot for saving me. 1 am very sorry," said the soldier
with tears in his eyes.
"Don't mention it! Since my illness can't be cured,
my days are numbered," said the patient.
"What illness you are suffering from?"
"1 feel hot all over and my arms and legs are weak."
"How long is it since you fell ill?"
"1 have been in bed for a whole year."
"Have you ever sent for a doctor?"
"1 have sent for many, but no medicine is effec-
tive."
 The soldier came over and felt the patient's pulse
for a while.
"1 can cure it. 1 will go to look for a medicinal herb
when it's light," said the soldier.
The next day, he returned with an herb which had
a few elliptical leaves and purple flowers.
"Elder sister-in-law, please wash these roots and
decoct them for elder brother. Then you can dig up
some more herbs like this and let him take it for a
few more days and he will certainly be cured."
"Thank you!"
"Why do you thank me? You've saved me! Now 1
have to go."
"Tell us your name, please! We can be friends,"
said the sick man at once.
"My name is Bai Wei. 1 will certainly come back to
see you while 1 live."
Then he went away. The patient felt comfortable
after drinking the decocted medicinal liqUid. He
continued to take it for a month and his illness was
gone.
When the villagers who escaped from calamity
came back, they asked how the patient had recovered.
 "A friend of mine sent me medicine," said the pa-
tient.
"What medicine?"
"This medicinal herb. "
"What's the name of it?"
"Gh, he didn't tell me. But he promised he would
come back to see me, so we can ask him then."
But Bai Wei never returned. To remember him,
they named the medicinal herb "bcii wei."

[][I][tl]§]@l] 89
ElEJEJEJLJ[L][d[tJ[D[L][lU
 NAME
English name : Rhubarb root and rhizome
Pharmaceutical name : Radix et Rhizoma
Rhei

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Spleen, Stomach, Large Intestine, Liver
and Pericardium

ACTIONS
1. Drains and precipitates by catharsis

18 2. Clears heat, purges fire, cools the

blood and removes toxins
3. Dispels stagnation to dredge the
channels

INDICATIONS
1. Constipation due to heat accumula-
tion
2 . Epistaxis, spitting of blood due to
blood -heat
3. Red eyes and swollen pharynx
4. Sores due to heat toxin
5. Burns and scalds
6 . All kinds of blood stasis
7. Dysentery due to damp heat; jaundice ;
stranguria

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

3-1 5g ., decocted in water for oral use;
appropriate amount for external
use .

90
 a huang, a traditional Chinese medicinal herb,
was called huang gen before, not da huang. Why
was it later called da huang? This is its story.
Long ago there was a doctor whose surname was
"Huang." For generations, his family was good at
gathering huang Jian, huang qi, huang jing, huang qin,
and huang gen. Also, for generations his family had 91
cured patients with these five "huang", or yellow,
medicinal herbs. Because of this, people all called
him Mr. "Wu Huang" (five yellows).
Every March, when Mr. Wu Huang climbed up
the mountain to gather medicinal herbs, he would
stay in Ma lun's, home in a village at the foot of the
mountain and only leave there after autumn. Ma lun
was a farmer. The other members of his family were
his wife and his son. Mr. Wu Huang and Ma lun's
family all became good friends.
One year, when Mr. Wu Huang returned and en-
tered the village, he found that Ma lun's house was
 gone.
"Ma lun's family suffered a calamity. His house
burned down last winter and his wife died in the fire.
Now he and his son live in a mountain cave," the
villagers told him.
Mr. Wu Huang was sorry to hear this. He went to
see Ma lun and his son in the mountain cave. Seeing
Mr. Wu Huang, Ma lun wept in his arms.
"As you have nothing now, you'd better follow me
to gather and sell medicinal herbs with your son,"
92 said Mr. Wu Huang.
Ma lun was very glad to go with Mr. Wu Huang,
and they wandered here and there. After less than
six months, Ma lun had learnt how to dig up the "wu
huang". But Mr. Wu Huang never taught him how to
cure disease.
"Elder brother, why don't you teach me how to
cure disease?" asked Ma Jun.
"I think you are too impatient to be a doctor," said
Mr. Wu Huang, laughing.
Ma Jun was a little dissatisfied by this, so he paid
attention to how Mr. Wu Huang cured people's disease
and he secretly used the medicines. As time went by,
Ma Jun learnt a little without Mr. Wu Huang's notic-
ing and he began to practice medicine.
One day, when Mr. Wu Huang was out, a pregnant
woman came to see the doctor. She was very weak
and as thin as a lath.
"What's wrong with you?" asked Ma Jun.
"Diarrhea," replied the woman.
Huang lian should be used to stop diarrhea, but
Ma Jun gave her huang gen instead. After taking two
doses of it, the patient's illness became even more
serious and she died after two days. 93
When her family learnt that the prescription was
made by Ma Jun, they took him to the County Court.
After a careful study of the case, the County official
judged that Ma Jun had killed the patient because he
was a quack.
Just then, Mr. Wu Huang came and he knelt down
in the court.
"You should pass sentence on me instead," said Mr.
Wu Huang.
"Who are you? Why are you a criminal?" asked the
official.
"Master, it has nothing to do with him, I did it
 behind his back," cried Ma Jun.
The official had heard of Mr. Wu Huang before,
and when he learnt of their relationship, he very
much admired what they were doing for the sake of
their friendship. So the official tried his best to ab-
solve Ma Jun from guilt, and at last he fined them
a sum of money to give to the dead person's family
and set them free.
"You can't be too impatient to learn how to cure
disease. As you have seen, the wrong medicine can
94 kill people," said Mr. Wu Huang.
Later, when Ma Jun had dug up medicinal herbs
honestly and become a more steady person, Mr. Wu
Huang began to teach him medical knowledge. So
that he would always remember this lesson, Mr. Wu
Huang changed the name of huang gen to da huang so
that later generations could also avoid misusing this
medicinal herb.

EJ[E~
ElEJElEl~[!][!][!]~[!]OO
95

u
'"
r
T;
 NAME
English name : Chinese Clematis Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix et Rhizoma
Clematidis

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent , salty and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Urinary Bladder

ACTIONS
1. Expels wind -dampness
2. Dredges collaterals to stop pain

19 3. Dissolves fish bone in the throat or

esophagus

INDICATIONS
1. Wind -cold impediment
2. Fish bone stuck in the throat (decoct
this herb with water and swallow it
slowly)

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-9g ., decocted in water for oral use;
30 - 35g ., for a bone stuck in the
throat

96
 Wei L'V\g Xi a V\

n a big mountain in southern China, there was

an old temple named Weiling. The old monks
of Weiling Temple knew about medicinal herbs and
one of them could cure rheumatism and help when
someone had a bone stuck in his throat. Many people
in the mountain suffered from rheumatism because
they worked in the wind and rain all year round. 97
And, because some hunters lived on a diet of wild
animal flesh, they often got animal bones stuck in
their throats. So people often came to the temple and
asked the old monk to solve their troubles.
The old monk was very cunning. Every time that
people asked him to cure their illness, he would burn
a joss stick and recite scriptures, put some ashes from
the joss stick into a bowl of water and then ask the
patients to drink it. Usually after the patients drank
this kind of water, their illnesses were cured. In or-
der to cheat the patients of money, the old monk
would say that it was Buddha so-and-so or this-and-
that who had saved their lives through supernatural
powers. Actually the water in the bowl was a kind of
medicinal liquid that he had had decocted before-
hand. Time passed. People all said that the Buddha in
Weiling Temple could grant whatever was requested
and they gave the old monk a beautiful title: "Sai shen
xian." This meant that the old monk was a match with
the immortals. So patients came from far away to the
temple to burn joss sticks and worship the Buddha.
Although this deceived people outside the temple,
the little monk who gathered and decocted the me-
dicinal herbs knew the truth. He worked very hard.
Besides making the medicine in a private room, he
had to make a fire to cook meals, clean the yards and
do many other odd jQbs. Despite all his work, the old
monk often ill-treated him. Since the little monk had
no one to complain to about these wrongs, he decid-
ed to next decoct the medicinal herbs with a different
wild grass which cured nothing.
One day, a hunter's son was choking on a bone.
The hunter carried his son in his arms to the temple
to ask Buddha for help. "Sai Shen xian" burned a joss
stick and recited scriptures as usual. Then he put the
ashes of the joss stick into the prepared medicinal
liquid and asked the boy to drink it.
Usually after the patient drank the bowl of ash wa-
ter, the bone would become soft and go down to the
stomach to be digested together with food. But this
time, the ash water was not effective. The bone was
still in the boy's throat and he was choking so much
that his face became blue and he couldn't cry out.
The old monk was worried, and sweat appeared all
over his bare head. As he was afraid of being embar-
rassed by his failure, he said to the boy's father. 99
"You must be dirty all over your body and have
offended Buddha. Get away! Buddha doesn't want to
show compassion for you."
So the hunter had to leave the temple, carrying his
son in his arms. The little monk sympathized very
much with the boy, so he ran out quickly from the
back door behind them.
"If Buddha has not been effective, your son can try
taking medicine," he said.
"Little master, where can I get the medicine?"
"Please wait a while."
The little monk brought out a bowl of the true me-
dicinal liquid and asked the boy to drink it. As soon
as the boy took this medicine, his discomfort ended.
The hunter thanked the monk again and again.
From that day on, the ash water of "Sai Shen Xian"
could no longer cure illnesses. At first "Sai Shen Xian"
excused himself and tried to fool others by claiming
"the patient is not honest, so Buddha doesn't want to
save him." But as time passed, people realized that
his ash water was useless, and even if they were ill,
people no longer went to him. The fire of the joss
sticks was nearly burned out.
Instead, more and more people came to the little
monk to ask for cures. People who lived on the
mountain all said that the ash water from the front
door of Weiling Temple couldn't cure illness, but the
medicinal liquid from the back door could.
At first the little monk was afraid that when the
old monk knew he gave medicine to the patients, he
would be beaten. But later it was more important to
cure the patients' diseases that sometimes he had no
time to hide it from the old monk. One day a boat-
man who suffered from rheumatism came for medi-
cine. The boatman forgot to enter the temple by the
back door and instead went straight to the hall to
look for the little monk. The old monk had begun
to realize why the ash water was no longer effective.
He was livid with rage and hated the little monk so
much that he really wanted to chew him out. But he
didn't dare to do so in front of the boatman because
he knew that he was in the wrong. He was so angry,
that he fell down from the doorsteps and died.
From then on, the little monk became the master
of Weiling Temple. He grew medicinal herbs and gave
them to the patients without asking for payment. 101
The leaves of this kind of medicinal herb were
small and its flowers blossomed in autumn. The little
monk only knew how to plant and decoct it, but he
didn't know its name. Later as people often came to
the little monk for this kind of medicine and it was
as effective as immortal grass, they named it "wei ling
xifin".

El[CJ[O[K][lf]C[]~~~
O[:J~~[l][!]OO
D[]][TI~~
 NAME
English name : Black Snake
Pharmaceutical name: Zaocvs

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED .... . ........ .

Lung and Spleen

ACTIONS
1. Dispels wind and dredges the channels
and collaterals
2. Calms fright and relieves spasm

20 3. Alleviates pain and tranquilizing

4. Expands blood vessels and reduces
blood pressure

INDICATIONS
1. Arthritis due to wind -dampness, with
numbness and pain of limbs
2. Sequela of windstroke, tetanus, leprosy,
scrofula
3. Infantile paralysis, etc.

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION " ...

3-9g ., decocted in water for oral use

[Ed : This herb is commonly known as

wu sho o she.]

102
 Wu Fel'1gShe

young man worked in a winery setting the

fires. After working there a long time, he suffered
from damp diseases. First tinea appeared on his head,
and later favus appeared all over his body. Eventu-
ally, the bones of his limbs ached and it was hard for
him to walk because he was nearly paralyzed.
When the master of the winery thought that the 103
young man was maimed, he gave him some money
and told him to go away.
The young man had neither parents nor wife.
Where could he go when he left the winery? He
thought that he would die from cold and hunger in
the future. It was better to die in the winery; you
could die from drinking a lot or by drowning in the
wine vat.
At night, the young man went to the backyard. He
opened a vat of old wine and drank from it. When
he felt bloated from drinking, he lay down on the
ground to wait for death. But when it was early dawn,
 the young man came to his senses. Finding himself
alive, he was afraid of being driven out by his master
at daylight, so he quickly jumped into the wine vat.
At the same moment, a worker came into the back-
yard. When he heard someone jumping into the wine
vat, he ran over to pull him out.
"Help!" cried the worker. The young man refused
to come out, no matter how people pulled at him.
They weren't able to pull him out of the big wine vat
until many people ran over to help.
104 "If you want to die, please go somewhere else to
do so. Don't dirty my wine!" said the master when he
drove the young man out of the winery.
Now the young man had to beg for his living on
the streets. He thought that even if he was not going
to die very soon, he would not live long. One day,
he felt itching all over his body and his skin began
breaking and flaking off slowly. A few months later,
he was like a cicada coming out of a shell: new pieces
of skin appeared, his joints didn't ache and he felt as
good as new. He was so happy that he broke his beg-
ging bowl and basket, and returned to the winery.
His fellows were very surprised when they saw him.
They didn't know who the handsome young man was
until they looked at him carefully.
When the master saw him, he was surprised too.
"How has your illness been cured?" he asked.
"Isn't it because I drank your wine and then
jumped into the wine vat?"
"Can wine cure disease? Is there anything in the
wine vat?" the master wondered to himself.
While he thought, he went looking for that vat of
old wine. When he dredged it, he found a wu [eng
she - a snake that had drowned in it long ago. He 105
sealed the vat up like a treasure and promoted it as a
medicinal wine to particularly cure rheumatism and
tinea.
Later the news was spread from mouth to mouth
that the wine containing wu [eng she had the function
of promoting the circulation of blood and removing
toxin, so from then on, people began to make medicine
with wine containing wu [eng she.

D~~~
ITJ[2]~[Sl
D[:JG0[I][l][][EJ[EJ~~
 NAME
English name : Mulberry Mistletoe
stems
Pharmaceutical name : Herba Taxilli

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, sweet and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver and Kidney

ACTIONS
1. Ex pels wind -dampness
2. Supplements the liver and kidney,

21 and strengthens the sinews and

bones
3. Quiets the fetus
4. Brings down blood pressure
5. Reduces blood lipids

INDICATIONS
1. Impediment syndrome with wind-
dampness, especially for soreness
of lumbus and knees
2 . Metrorrhagia and metrostaxia ,
bleeding in pregnancy, restless fetus
3. Hypertension, coronary heart disease
4. Chronic nephritis
5. Chronic bronchitis
6. Poliomyelitis

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-1 5g, decocted in water for oral use

106
 ~~~
5 a 1'193, She 1'19

nce upon a time, a rich landlord's son suffered

from rheumatism in his back and knees. It was
hard for him to walk, he had been in bed for several
years and the doctors did not know how to cure him.
The landlord forced an herbalist on the southern
mountain to provide medicine for his son's disease.
The southern mountain was 20 miles away, so the 07
landlord ordered a young farmhand to fetch the
medicine every two days. The herbalist tried several
kinds of medicinal herbs, but the son didn't recover.
There was a lot of snow in the winter, and when
the farmhand went to fetch the medicine, he had to
walk for 40 miles in foot-deep snow. It was so cold
that he shivered all over because his clothes were so
thin.
There is an old saying that "when you eat some-
one's food, he controls you." If the farmhand failed
to return with the medicine, his master would be
dissatisfied. One day, he stood outside the village
 and saw some small twigs growing out of a hole in an
old white mulberry tree.
"Isn't this just like the medicine that the landlord's son
is taking? Since he won't get better no matter what he
takes, I can take this home instead of those medicinal
herbs." He climbed up the tree and broke off a few
twigs. Then he stealthily ran to his friend's home,
cut the twigs into small pieces and wrapped them in
paper. After staying with his friend for a while, he
returned to the rich landlord.
108 The landlord didn't know what was in the package
because others decocted it. When the young farm-
hand saw that the landlord could be deceived, he
continued his trick and saved himself a long walk.
Meanwhile, the herbalist was surprised that he had
not seen the farmhand for a while. "If he hasn't come

rn
for the medicine, what has the landlord's son taken
c
'g that makes him better?" he asked himself.
{l

"
l'
::>
The herbalist wanted to know what had happened,
so he went to see the landlord. When he got to the
landlord's gate, he met the young farmhand. Because
the farmhand feared that the landlord would discov-
er the truth about his deception, he told the herbalist
what he had done.
"Uncle, please don't tell the landlord!" he said.
"All right! But you must tell me what you gave his
son," promised the herbalist.
"Tree twigs! They're from the old mulberry tree on
the edge of the village."
"1 have never heard that mulberry twigs can cure
rheumatism. Please take me there to have a look at
them."
The farmhand led the herbalist outside the village.
When the herbalist climbed up the tree, he found a 109
plant with leaves like the Chinese scholar tree grow-
ing inside a hole of it. He gathered some and climbed
down.
When the herbalist tried to cure diseases with this,
he found that it did cure a few people who suffered
from rheumatism. Because these twigs grew upon the
mulberry (sang) tree, people named it "sangji sheng"
to mean "a parasitic plant on the mulberry (sang)
tree."
DLJ~~~~[!J[!][!J[IJ
DDLJEJEJEJ~[!][!]l!][!]
0GEJ[I][jJ
 NAME
English name : Swordlike Atractylodes
Rhizome
Pharmaceutical name : Rhizoma
Atractylodis

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent, bitter and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Spleen, Stomach and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Dries dampness and strengthens

22 the spleen
2. Dispels wind dampness
3. Induces sweat, releases the exterior

INDICATIONS
1. Syndrome of dampness stagnation
in Middle Burner
2. Impediment syndrome due to wind
damp
3 . Ex terior syndrome of wind, cold
and dampness
4. Chickenpox, mumps and scarlet fever
5. Infantile rickets
6. Night blindness and dry eye s
7. Diabetes

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-1Og, decocted in water for oral use.

11 0
 n the Mao mountain nunnery there lived an
old nun who could cure illnesses. As she knew
many kinds of medicinal herbs, she had a good repu-
tation so whenever people on or outside the moun-
tain fell ill, they would come to her for medicines.
The old nun herself didn't go to gather the medicinal
herbs. She ordered the little nun to do it. Although
the little nun went to gather the medicinal herbs
from all over the mountain every day, she knew
nothing about which kind of medicinal herb could
cure which illness. The old nun was very greedy, so if
someone gave her more money, she would give him
better medicine; but if someone gave her less money,
she would deceive him with some useless wild grass.
When the little nun saw this unfair practice, she was
angry, but could do nothing about it, for she didn't
know the medicinal herbs herself.
One day, a poor man came to the old nun for med-
icine. As the man had no money, the old nun drove
him away without asking him a word about his ill-
ness.
The little nun was so indignant at this that she
grabbed a handful of medicinal herbs with white
flowers and followed him out.
"Brother, please take this home and try it," she
said.
But after the man went away, the little nun began
to feel worried, because she didn't know what illness
the man suffered from or if the medicinal herb could
cure it.
Surprisingly, a few days later, the poor man re-
turned to the nunnery.
He found the old nun and thanked her whole-
heartedly.
"Thanks to your little nun's help, my father got
well from his paralysis that had lasted for many
years," he said.
The old nun was very surprised, for she had no
idea of which medicinal herb could cure this kind of
illness.
"What medicine have you stolen? Tell me!" she
asked the little nun.
 The little nun truly didn't know what how to an-
swer her. Later, when she looked closely at it, she
recognized that it was the medicinal herb with white
flowers called "cang zhU," a herb which the old nun
had not even asked her to gather. Probably when she
had gathered the medicinal herbs, she had carelessly
put it in her herb basket. The old nun considered it
a useless wild grass and always tossed it aside. From
then on, the little nun knew that "cang zhri" could
cure illnesses.
Some time later, because the little nun could no 113
longer stand her ill-treatment from the old nun, she
escaped from the nunnery and went home to resume
her secular life. She then began to make her living by
gathering "cang zhU". Not only did she use it to treat
patients who suffered from paralysis, she also real-
ized that "cang zhri" could cure vomiting, diarrhea,
and so forth.

LJEJEJ~~~~
EJ[I][JJ[1;J[I]
 fI'

NAME
English name : Plantago Seed
Pharmaceutical name: Semen Plantaginis

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet and cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Kidney, Liver, Lung, and Small Intestine

ACTIONS
1. Induces urination to relieve stranguria
2. Leaches out dampness and checks
diarrhea

23 3. Brighten s eyes
4. Dispels phlegm

I NDICATIONS
1. Edema and stranguria
2. Red eyes, dim vision or blurred vision
and eye screen
3. Conjunctival congestion , cataract,
and blurred vision
4. Cough due to heat phlegm

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

10-1 5g, wrapped with cloth for cook-
ing in decoction

114
 ne June, there was a drought. The fields were
barren and no crop was living. At the same
time, Ma Wu had been defeated in battle, so his sol-
diers and horses retreated and dispersed to an unin-
habited region. There, they could find no grain and
it was also difficult to find water. Many soldiers and
horses died of hunger and thirst and most of those 115
still alive suffered from damp-heat disease of the
urinary bladder. Everyone had swelling of the lower
abdomen, and they all suffered from hematuria. Even
the horses suffered from this kind of disease as well.
General Ma Wu had a groom who took care of
three horses and one cart, so he was in contact with
the horses every day. In time, both he and the horses
fell ill. The groom was very worried, but he could do
nothing about it.
One day the groom was surprised to suddenly find
that his horses were all right and had become high
spirited again. He rounded the horses up, looking at
 them and thinking. Growing near the cart, he found a
kind of pig-ear-like grass which the three horses had
been eating. He thought that this kind of grass had
probably cured the horses' disease, so he dug up a
lot of it and decocted it.
After drinking it for a few days, his urine became
normal again.
The groom ran to the general and told Ma Wu
about it. When he heard this news, Ma Wu was very
glad, and he ordered all his soldiers to dig up this
11 6 kind of grass and to decoct it for the people and
horses to drink. In a few days, the disease was cured.
"Where did you find this pig-ear-like grass?"
"It was growing in front of the cart," replied the
groom.
"A wonderful 'che qian zi' - grass in front of a cart!"
laughed Ma Wu.
From then on, this name of che qian zi has spread.

LJ~[!][I]
D[]El[E]~[lJ~[l]~
oITJttJ
11 7
 NAME
English name: Virgate Wormwood
Herb
Pharmaceutical name : Herba Artemisiae
Scopariae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, pungent , and slightly cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Spleen , Stomach , Liver, and Gallbladder

ACTIONS
1. Drains dampness to relieve jaundice

24 2. Safeguards the liver, and regulates

functions of the gallbladder to alleviate
jaundice
3. Reduces blood lipids and blood
pressure, also increases the coronary
artery flow
4. Antibacterial, antiviral for influenza
virus
5. Kills and expels intestinal parasites
6. Induces urination, disperses inflam -
mation and resolves heat

INDICATIONS
1. Newborn jaundice, yang jaundice
and yin jaundice
2. Cholelithiasis and ascariasis
3. Damp lichen, etc

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-30g, decocted in water for oral use ;
appropriate amount for external
use

11 8
 ~~.~
\ ( , V\ ch e V\ +-1 a 0

here was a patient who suffered from jaundice:

his face was yellow, his eyes were sunken and
he was as thin as a lath. One day he came to Hua Tuo,
leaning on a crutch and groaning.
"Master, please bless me," said the patient.
On seeing that the patient was suffering from jaun-
dice, Hua Tuo frowned and shook his head. 119
"No doctor has yet found a way to cure this kind
of illness. 1 can do nothing about it either," said Hua
Tuo.
Seeing that even Hua Tuo could do nothing, the
patient, with a worried look, could only go home to
wait for death. Half a year later, Hua Tuo again met
the patient. The man was unexpectedly not only still
alive, but he had become strong, and was glowing
with health. Hua Tuo was very much surprised.
"Who has cured your illness?" asked Hua Tuo, "I
want to learn from him."
"It has cured itself."
 "That's impossible. You must have had some medi-
cine."
"None."
"That's strange."
"Oh, but because there was no grain during this
spring's natural disaster this spring, I ate wild grass
for some days."
"That's enough! Grass is medicine. How long did
you eat it?"
"For about a month."
120 "What kind of grass?"
"I don't know exactly."
"Please take me to look at it."
"All right."
After they climbed up a mountain slope, he pointed
to a piece of grassland.
"Here it is," he said.
"Isn't this qing haa? Can it cure illness? I will get
some and try it," said Hua Tuo.
So Hua Tuo began to try to cure jaundice with qing
haa. Though he tried it many times, none of the pa-
tients recovered. Thinking that the first man perhaps
didn't see the grass clearly, Hua Tuo went to him again.
 "Is it true that you took qIng haa?"
"Yes."
"In which month?"
"Oh, March, when the Yang Qj rises and all kinds
of grasses begin to sprout. Perhaps in March qIng haa
has medicinal energy."
The next spring, Hua Tuo gathered a lot of qIng
haa in March and asked patients who suffered from
jaundice to take it. This time, it was very effective.
Whoever had it would be cured. But when the spring
was over, this same qIng haa was useless. 121
In order to fully learn the medical properties of
qIng haa, Hua Tuo tried another experiment in the
third year. He gathered separate parts of the plant and
gave them to patients to take. As a result, Hua Tuo dis-
covered that only the young stems and leaves could
be made into medicine. So that people could easily tell
them apart, Hua Tuo named the young qIng haa that
could be put into medicine yIn chen haa.
EJEJEl[rJ[ilJ[!j]~[l1][!l]
~[IJ[EJ~[fI][fI]~
LJLJLJLJDD[!]l:J[[]~~
[i&]~
 NAME
English name : Christina Loosetrife
Herb
Pharmaceutical name: Herba Lvsimachiae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet, salty, and slightly cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver, Gallbladder, Kidney and Urinary
Bladder

ACTIONS
1. Drains dampness and relieves

25 jaundice
2. Reduces urination and relieves
stranguria
3. Resolves toxin and relieves swelling

INDICATIONS
1. Jaundice due to damp-heat
2. Urolithic stranguria and heat
stranguria
3. Swelling abscess, clove sores, and
poisonous snake bite

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

30-60g. The fresh herb amount should
be double the dried herb amount ;
appropriate amount for external
use

122
 n the past there was a young couple who loved
each other and lived a happy life. But the good
times didn't last long. One day the husband suddenly
had an ache under his ribs. It ached like a needle or a
knife pricking his skin, and not very long afterwards
he died. His wife wept her heart out and insisted that
the doctor find the cause for her husband's death. 123
Since the disease seemed to be located there, the doc-
tor dissected her husband's belly and found a small
"stone" in his gallbladder.
Looking at the "stone" in her hand, the wife said
sadly: "Such a small 'stone' has separated an affec-
tionate couple. What great harm it has done to us!"
She wove a small string bag with red and green silk
threads and kept the "stone" in it. She wore the bag
around her neck day and night and never took it off.
She wore it in this way for many years.
One autumn, she went up the mountain to cut
grass. After she collected a big bundle of it, she
 brought it down the mountain. When she got home
with the bundle, she found that strangely enough
half of the "stone" had been dissolved. Surprised,
she told everyone what had happened. Later a doctor
heard of it and went to her.
"In the grasses you cut that day, there must be one
grass that can dissolve this kind of 'stone'. Please lead
me to the mountain to look for it", said the doctor.
The next day, she led the doctor to the moun-
tain slope where she had cut the grass. But by then,
124 all the grasses had been cut down and taken away.
The doctor set up a fence with small tree branches
around the place as a sign because he wanted to re-
turn to the spot the next year when the grass reap-
peared.
In the next autumn, the doctor climbed the moun-
tain again with the woman. They cut all the grasses
there and let the woman take them home. But this
time the "stone" was not dissolved at all but as hard
as before. Yet, the doctor remained hopeful.
In the autumn of the third year, he climbed the
mountain with the woman for the third time, they
cut down all of the grasses on the mountain slope
and classified them. Then they placed the 'stone' on
every kind of the grass to test their experiment.
At last, they found the grass that could dissolve it.
"Wonderful! Gallstones can be cured!"
From then on, the doctor climbed the mountain
every year to gather this medicinal grass for curing
the gallstones. The effectiveness of this medicine was
very good.
As the leaves of this wonderful medicinal grass
were round and like golden coins, all the people said
that the grass was more valuable than gold. So the
doctor called it jin qian cao. Later some people called
it hua shi dan, that is, the herb which dissolves stones.

0~~~[±J[13[!][18
0000w[1J[B~~~
EJEJEJEJEl~[!][!][!]
 NAME '
English name: Medicinal evodia Fruit
Pharmaceutical name : Fructus Evodiae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent , hot , bitter and slight ly to x ic

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver, Stomach, Spleen and Kidney

ACTIONS
1. Di ss ipates cold and relieves pain
2. Downbears counteflow and checks
vomiting

26 3. Reinforces the yang and checks

diarrhea
4. Eliminates dampness
5. Inhibits bacteria
6 . Downbears blood pressure

INDICATIONS
1. Pain due to congealed co ld
2. Vomiting due to Stomach co ld
3. Diarrhea due to deficiency cold
4. Infertility due to retention of cold
in the uterus
5. Diarrhea due to deficiency co ld of
the Spleen and Kidney

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

1.5-4.5g, appropriate dosage for external
use

126
 J:f~
W tA zh i:i )! tA

t was said that wli zhii yli was called wli yli in
the Spring and Autumn period. It grew in the
Wu kingdom and was a good kind of anodyne.
At that time Wu was a small state compared with
its neighbour Chu to which it had to pay tribute. One
year the tribute from Wu included wli yli. But when .
the king of Chu saw it, he was very angry . 127
"Wu is a small state, how dare they name a tribute
after their kingdom? They look down upon our im-
pressive kingdom of Chu! Take it back! I don't want
it!" shouted the king.
Surprised, the messenger from Wu didn't know
what to do. Just at this moment, a senior official of
Chu whose surname was Zhu came to speak to the
king.
"This wli yli can cure stomach cold, stomachache
and also vomiting and diarrhea. The king of Wu
chose it as a tribute because he heard that you had
stomachache. If you refuse to accept it, it will hurt
 the relations between our two states," said Zhu.
"Nonsense!" shouted the king of Chu,"I don't need
this wli yli! Neither does our state!"
Shamed and angry, the messenger from Wu re-
treated from the palace, but the senior official Zhu
ran after him.
"Please don't be angry. Leave the wli yli with me.
My king will need it sooner or later."
So the messenger gave wli yli to Zhu. Taking it
home, Zhu planted it in his yard and ordered people
128 to take care of it.
When the king of Wu heard that the king of Chu had
been so rude, he broke off diplomatic relations with Chu.
A few years later, wli yli was growing luxuriously
in Zhu's yard and covered a large piece of land. He
knew that the unripe fruit of this kind of grass could
be used as medicine, so he ordered his people to pick
it and air-dry it so that he could keep a large quanti-
ty. One day, the king of Chu suddenly suffered from
a relapse of illness, and his stomach hurt so much
that he was sweating all over his body. Although the
senior officials were very worried, no one could do
anything for him.
 Zhu quickly decocted wti yIi and brought it to the king.
After taking a few doses, his stomachache stopped. An-
other few doses, and it was cured completely.
"What kind of medicine have you given me?" asked
the king.
"This is the wu yu that Wu paid as a tribute to you,"
Zhu told him.
By now, the king of Chu began to regret having
treated Wu that way. So he sent messengers to re-
store good relations with Wu, at the same time, he
ordered people to plant wti yIi in large amounts. 129
One autumn, seasonal febrile disease was wide-
spread in Chu. Many people suffered from vomiting
and diarrhea and some of them even died.
The king of Chu ordered Zhu to make medicine at
once to save people. Zhu made medicine with wu yU
and saved many people.
In order to have people remember Zhu's contribu-
tions, the king of Chu ordered that people to change
the name of wU yIi into wu zhrl yIi.
CJ[:Jc::J~[!][!]OO
EJEJLJEJo~[!][IJ[I]
EJEJLJEl~[!!][!!][!!][!][!]
 NAME
English name: Hawthorn Fruit
Pharmaceutical name: Fructus Crataegi

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sour, sweet, and slightly warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Spleen, Stomach, and Liver

ACT IONS
1. Promotes digestion and resolves
stagnation
2. Moves qi and dissipates blood

27 stasis
3. Stops diarrhea and dysentery
4. Dilates blood vessels and brings
down blood pressure

INDICATIONS
1. Indigestion and retention of food
2. Abdominal pain with diarrhea
3. Hernial distending pain
4. Menstrual pain

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

10-15g, decocted in water for oral
use; larger dosages up to 30g .

130
 n a mountain lived a family who owned some
land on its slope. There were two sons in the
family. The elder son's mother had died, and the
younger was born to the second wife. The stepmother
regarded the elder boy as a thorn in her flesh. She
wished to kill him so that her own son could have all
the family property. But how? She couldn't kill him 131
with a knife nor push him into a river.
Thinking about this again and again, she came up
with a cruel plan, to make the boy ill and then die of
illness.
It happened that the boy's father was going away
on business. When he left, he told his sons to obey
their mother.
"There is so much to do in our household. You'll
have to work," the woman told the elder boy as soon
as her husband left home.
"What do you want me to do?" asked the boy.
"Since you are young, you can go guard the fields.
 I will cook some food for you to take with you."
From that time, the elder boy stayed out in the
wind and rain looking after their crops every day.
His cruel step-mother deliberately made half-cooked
food for him every day. The boy was very young,
.<
how could he digest such food every day in the wild
fields? As time passed, he began to have stomach
trouble. Sometimes he suffered from stomachache
and sometimes from swelling of his belly. He grew
thinner and thinner.
132 "Mummy, these days my stomach aches a lot im-
mediately after I eat the food you cook for me," said
the boy.
"You have only done a little work, but yet you
complain about the meals. Humph! There's nothing
but this for you to eat."
The boy didn't dare to argue, so he sat on the
mountain, weeping. On the mountain there grew a lot
of wild shan zhao Since he wouldn't eat the half-cooked
food, he ate a few shan zha instead. Because he felt
that it allayed his hunger and quenched his thirst,
he began eating it every day. After a while, not only
was his belly swelling gone, but also his stomachache
stopped. He could now digest whatever he ate. His
stepmother was very surprised.
"Why hasn't the fellow died? Why is he growing fat
instead? Has a god protected him?" she wondered.
So, she gave up her evil plan and no longer dared
try to eliminate the boy.
Later, the boy's father returned home. The boy told
him about his experience with shan zhao His father was
a shrewd businessman and so began to make medi-
cine with shan zha and sold it to patients. Over time,
it was found that shan zM could invigorate the Spleen's 133
function and be good for the Stomach, promote
digestion and reduce swelling.

QJQJQiJ
Drnrnrn[iJ~~~[iB~~ .t.

~~
U
 NAME
English name : Pseudoginseng Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix et Rhizoma
Notoginseng

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet, slightly bitter and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Liver and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Resolves blood stasis to stanch
bleeding

28 2. Quickens blood to alleviate pain

3. Eliminates tiredness and treats
insomnia

INDICATIONS
1. Various kinds of hemorrhages,
especially for hemorrhage with
blood heat and blood stasis
2. Traumatic injury, swel ling and pain
due to blood stagnation
3. Coronary heart disease and cardiac
hepatitis

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

10 - 15g., decocted in water for oral
use, or 1-3g ., ground into powder
for external use

134
 ong, long ago, there were two young men who
became sworn brothers. They swore to the
skies that they would share their joys and sorrows.
These two young men often came and went to see
each other, and if one heard that the other had some
difficulties, he would go to help him at once.
One day the younger man suddenly fell ill, blood 135
came out of his mouth and nose and in his stool and
urine. In less than two days, his face became pale.
When the elder brother learned this, he quickly dug
a medicinal herb up from his own backyard and
brought it to his younger brother. He decocted it
and had him drink the medicinal liquid. After taking
a few doses, his disease was cured, and he was very
grateful to his elder brother.
"Brother, what elixir of life did you use to save my
life?" he asked.
"A medicinal herb which especially stanches bleed-
ing. It's a secret recipe in my family from generation
 to generation."
"Can you let me see it?"
"Certainly!"
Later, when the younger brother went to the elder
brother's house, the elder brother led him into his
back yard. A grass with slightly yellow flowers was
growing there.
"This is the medicinal herb which can stanch
bleeding," said the elder brother.
"Does it have any other uses apart from this?"
136 "It can quicken the blood and dissipate stasis, dis-
perse swelling and stop pain. And it can particularly
cure traumatic injures, metrorrhagia and metrostaxis,
and puncture wounds."
"Oh, it's truly a wonderful medicine!" The young-
er brother wanted this medicinal herb very much.
"Brother, I have been told that people who get a
blood disease have a relapse in three years," he lied.
"Can you give me some of this grass?"
"Certainly! You can dig up a seedling and trans-
plant it in your home. Be sure not to tell anybody
else or it will be stolen. It's a wonderful medicine!"
"All right!"
 In this way the younger brother brought back a
seedling and planted it in his back yard. He looked
after it very carefully: watering it and giving it ma-
nure.
One year later, the grass was growing luxuriantly.
Not far from the younger brother's home there
lived a rich landlord, whose son got the same bleed-
ing disease which he had had. Because no medicine
could stop his bleeding the landlord's son was going
to die, and the landlord was very worried.
"If someone can cure this disease, I will reward
him with much silver and rice." When he heard this,
the younger brother dug the herb up out of his back
yard and brought it to the landlord. Unfortunately,
it did not work, even after the patient had a few
doses, and the landlord's son finally died of excessive
bloodloss.
As soon as the landlord discovered that his son
died after taking the younger brother's medicine, he
seized him.
"You told me that you could completely cure my
son's disease, but your real purpose was to cheat me
out of my money. We will go see the county magis-
trate!" cried the landlord.
When the magistrate got the complaint, he ques-
tioned the younger brother.
"From whom did you learn the medicine? What
plant did you use in the decoction?" he asked.
The younger brother was frightened. He had to tell
him about his elder brother and so his brother was
called up.
"What grass did you give him?" the county magis-
trate asked the elder brother.
"The medicinal herb that has been grown in secret
by my family for generations."
"Brother, it's a fraud! What a bitter fate you've
given me! Now I will have to pay for it with my life!"
said the younger brother.
"How could I cheat you?" said the elder brother.
"Why didn't it stop the bleeding?"
"Your grass has only grown for one year. It has no
medicinal value yet."
"How many years does it need to grow to be effec-
tive?" the county magistrate quickly asked.
"After three or seven years, the power of the me-
dicinal herb is greatest."
 Now the younger brother began to realize his mis-
take and he regretted that he had been so greedy for
money.
Later, in order to remember that this kind of me-
dicinal herb was useless for stopping bleeding until
after the third or seventh year, people named it san
qi: three, seven.

139
 NAME
Eng lish name: Agrimony
Pharmaceutical name: Herba Agrirnoniae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, astringent and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung, Heart and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Astringes to stanch bleeding
2. Disperses food retention and
checks dysentery

29 3. Checks malaria
4. Supplements qi
5. Kills worms

INDICATIONS
1. Various hemorrhages, manifested
as hematemesis, hemoptysis, and
epistaxis
2. Diarrhea and dysentery
3. Exhaustion of essence -spirit caused
by overstrai n
4 . Trichomonal vaginitis
5. Malaria

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

3-1 Og., decocted in water for oral use

140
 ~J)~~
Xi a 1'1 t-Ie Cao

ne summer, two young men went to the ca-

pital to take an examination. As they were
afraid of missing the examination date, they didn't
rest along the way, so they were very tired.
One day, they entered a sandy wasteland, having
found neither a village nor a hotel to rest at, although
they were hungry and thirsty. Suddenly blood began 41
to flow without stopping from one man's nose, because of
his tiredness and the heat. The other man was wor-
ried. He hurriedly ripped their old books to long
narrow pieces, rolled them up like paper spills and
put them into his friend's nostrils. But even when his
nostrils were clogged up, the blood still poured out
of his friend's mouth.
"What should we do now?" he asked.
"It would be good if I could have some water," said
the sick man. "Even if you were only to put a wet
stone in my mouth, I will feel more comfortable."
"But look around, you can see nothing except yel-
 low sand."
Just at this moment, a red-crowned crane, in Chi-
nese its name is xian he, was flying over their heads.
The man who was bleeding threw up his arms in ad-
miration.
"Wait! Please lend me your wings and let me fly out
of this hellish place!" he cried.
Startled, the xian he opened her mouth and a piece
of grass fell from it.
His friend picked up the piece of grass with a
142 smile.
"She hasn't lent you her wings, but chew on this to
moisten your throat," he said.
The sick man quickly put it in his mouth to chew
on. Surprisingly, after a while, the bleeding stopped.
Both of them were very glad.
"Aha, XHin He has sent us xian dio," they said to
each other.
In the end, they didn't miss the examination but
arrived on time. A few years later, both of them
became officials. One day they got together and
thought of their adventure on the sandy wastes. They
wanted to find that medicinal herb that could stop
bleeding. Although they asked many doctors about it,
none knew this medicinal herb. So they drew a pic-
ture of it from memory and ordered people to look
for it. After many years of searching, it was found at
last. It was a medicinal herb with feather-like leaves
and flowers that blossomed in autumn, and it real-
ly had the effect of stopping bleeding. In order to
remember that Xian He had sent it, they named this
kind of medicinal herb "xian he cao".

DDJ8Jrm~
[Jc:J0[I][I][IJrnrnwW[!]
[rJ~~~
EJElEJEJEJ~[!][!][!]
 NAME
English name : Chinese Motherwort
Herb
Pharmaceutical name : Herba Leonuri

NATURE AND FLAVOR .

Pungent, bitter and slightly cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Heart, Liver and Urinary Bladder

ACTIONS
1. Quickens the blood and regulates
menstruation

30 2. Induce s urination and disperses

swelling
3. Clears heat to resolve toxin
4 . Ex pels wind and relieves itching
5. Stimulates the uterus

INDICATIONS
1. Amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, blocked
menstruation , po stpartum abdomi-
nal pain due to stagnation and lochia
2. Ed ema and inhibited urination
3. Swelling and toxin of sores and
carbuncle s; skin urticaria
4 . Angina pectoris , coronary heart
disease
5. Injuries from trauma

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

10-30g., decocted in water for oral
use

144
 here was a family of two persons: an old wo-
man and her son. When she gave birth to her
son, the old woman had suffered from postpartum
stasis and stomachache. Now, although her son was
already 10 years old, she was still tormented with the
disease. The boy lost his father when he was a child.
Because his mother brought him up, he was very 45
devoted to her. When the boy saw that his mother
struggled to spin cotton into yarn everyday although
she was pale and emaciated he was very worried.
"Mother, don't force yourself to work so hard! Let
me send for a doctor to cure your disease," he said.
"You fool!" said his mother. "We haven't enough
food to eat, how can we spend money for a doctor?"
"Then I will buy some medicine from the herba-
list."
"Don't do that! You will soon grow up. I don't care
how long I will live. Don't spend money for me!"
"Mother, your words have made me sad. You have
 worked hard for me for half of your life, so I must
help you live happily for the rest of your life. No
matter else, we must try to cure your disease."
So the boy went to a herbalist and told him about
his mother's condition. The herbalist sold him two
doses of medicine. After his mother had taken this
medicine, her disease didn't appear again for about
10 days. The boy was very glad. So he returned to
the herbalist.
"Can you completely get rid of my mother's
146 disease?" he asked.
"Certainly!" replied the herbalist with a smile.
"How much should I pay you?"
"Five hundredjin of rice and ten liang of silver."
"Oh!" The boy was frightened when he heard this.
Where could he find so much rice and silver? But if
he couldn't pay, the herbalist wouldn't give him the
medicine. What could he do? Suddenly, the boy had
an idea. "It's easy to get money and rice. But first I
need to know if you can really cure my mother's di-
sease. When it is cured completely, I will pay you as
much silver and rice as you want."
"All right! But you must do as you say," said the
herbalist. He thought that he had made a good deal
because the boy didn't bargain when he had asked
for so much grain and silver.
"When will you go dig up the medicinal herb for
me]" asked the boy.
"Mind your own business! You can come to get it
tomorrow morning."
As the herbalist went home, the boy silently fol-
lowed him and hid in a big tree outside his gate.
That night, when other people went to sleep, the boy
,
stayed there with his eyes open. 147
At dawn, he heard a door open, and he saw the
shadow of a human figure going north. The boy hur-
riedly slipped down the tree and followed him. The
herbalist was very cunning. Because he was afraid
that someone would follow him, he kept looking back
behind him every few steps. But the boy was clever
too. He watched the herbalist from a distance and
guessed that he was going to the taro field three
miles away. So, he quickly ran there along another
road and waited for him.
The herbalist came closer and closer. Finally he
stopped in the taro field and looked around. Seeing
 that nobody else was there, he squatted down and
began digging for the medicinal herb. Actually, the
boy had hidden himself behind a tree nearby and
was watching him closely. Because the herbalist was
afraid that somebody would recognize what he had,
he tore off the flowers and leaves of the grass he dug
up and threw them into the river. Then he returned
to the village with its stem.
The boy waited until the herbalist was out of sight
before he ran to the field. He found all kinds of wild
148 grasses growing there. The boy didn't know which
ones were the medicinal herb even though he saw
some holes in the ground. Then he remembered that
the herbalist had thrown something into the river.
Jumping in, the boy found some flowers and leaves.
He went to the taro field to compare them with what
the herbalist had dug. At last he recognized a kind of
medicinal herb with hand-like leaves, and pink and
white flowers, he dug up some of it and went home.
"Where have you been this whole night?" asked his
mother.
"I went to look for the medicine for you," replied
the boy.
 While they were talking, the herbalist came to
bring them two doses of medicinal herb.
"One dose for today and one dose for tomorrow. I
will send some more later," said the herbalist.
Opening the paper wrapping after the herbalist
left, the boy saw that the medicinal herb had been
crushed into powder and he couldn't recognize its
original shape. He smelled it and found that his herb
and the herbalist'S medicinal herb were the same. So
the boy put the herbalist'S medicine away and de-
cocted the herb he had dug up and had his mother 149
drink its liquid.
Two days later, his mother became better.
On the third day, when the herbalist sent medicine
to them again, they didn't accept it.
"I am sorry. I have counted for half a day. We can't get
the money and rice you wanted last time. This kind
of medicine is so expensive that my mother won't
have it. Please take the payment for your last two
doses and don't send medicine here any more," said
the boy.
"If your mother doesn't take my medicine, her
illness will become worse and she will die before the
 Mid-autumn festival," said the herbalist.
"You are saying that if we have money, her disease
can be cured; but if not she has to wait for death. We
have no money. We are so poor that she must wait
for death," replied the boy.
The herbalist could say nothing, but went away
with his two doses of medicine.
The boy went back to the taro field to dig up the
medicinal herb every day and he decocted it for his
mother. Gradually, his mothers illness was completely
150 cured and she could go back to the field to work.
Though the boy knew this kind of medicine, he
didn't know its name. Later, in order to remember
the benefit that his mother got from the medicinal
herb, he called it "yi mil cao": the herb that benefits
Mother.

DLJ~~~0[ill~[!]OO
[g~~~~
EJEJEJEJEJEJ[!J[!][!]
151
 NAME
English name : Achyranthes Root
Pharmaceutical name: Radix Achyranthis
Bidentatae
NATURE AND FLAVOR
Bitter, sweet, sour and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED
liver and Kidney

ACTIONS
1. Quickens blood and disinhibits
menstruation
2. Supplements the liver and Kidney,
and strengthens bone s and tendons
3. Induces urination and treats stranguria
4. Relieves cough

31
5. Reduces blood sugar
6. Reduces plasma cholesterol
7. Stimulates the uterus and dilates
the cervical canal

INDICATIONS
1. Menstrual di s eases in women,
manifested as abnormal menstrua-
tion, dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea,
postpartum obstruction and ab -
dominal pain which are all caused
by stagnant blood
2. Soreness and pain in the lumbus
and knee due to deficiency of the
Liver and Kidney or prolonged
arthralgia
3. Stranguria, edema and urethral
pain
4 . Headache, dizziness, toothache ,
oro -lingual sore s, spitting of blood
and apostaxis

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-1 5g., decocted in water for oral use

152
 n Henan Province lived a doctor who went to
Anhui to practice and sell medicine. As time
passed he settled there. The doctor was unmarried,
and he had only enlisted a few students. Because
he knew a medicinal herb that could strengthen the
bones and muscles; and enrich the Liver and Kidney
when pan-roasted, he cured many patients who 153
suffered from jaundice. He wanted to pass on this
"family formula"; all his students seemed good, but
he did not know who was the right one. Because he
only wanted to give it to a kind-hearted student, he
had to test them all.
"I am so old and weak that 1 can no longer gather
and sell medicinal herbs. You have all learnt my
skills. Please go make your own livelihoods," the doctor
told his students.
The first student thought that since his teacher had
sold medicine all his life, he must have saved a lot of
money, which he would inherit if he lived with him.
 "I shall not leave you. You have taught me skills, so
I should serve you," he said and the other students
agreed with this.
So the teacher went to live with his first student.
At first, he took care of him so well that the teacher
felt satisfied. Later, while the teacher was out, the
student untied his teacher's luggage and searched
through it. He found nothing there but the medicinal
herbs which had not yet been sold. From that time
on, he stopped being so concerned for his teacher.
When the teacher saw through his student's nature,
he left him and went to live with his second student.
The second student was exactly the same as the
first one.
He went to the third one; but the third student was
no better than the other two. Since the teacher could
no longer live there, he took his luggage and sat on
the street crying.
At this time, his youngest student learnt about his
troubles. "Please come live with me," he asked his
teacher.
"I don't have my own money, how can I eat your
food without paying?"
 "Teachers and students are like fathers and sons.
Shouldn't a student serve his teacher?"
When the teacher saw that his student said these
words from his heart, he went to live with him. Not
long after, the teacher fell ill. His student stayed by
his bed looking after him as if he were his own fa-
ther. Seeing this, the teacher was happy. One day he
called his student and untied the small cloth he wore
next to his skin.
"This medicinal herb is a treasure. If you prepare
it by roasting it in a pan, it can strengthen bones and 155
muscles, enrich the liver and kidney. As soon as a
patient takes this medicine, his disease will be cured.
Now I give it to you."
Soon after, the teacher died and his student buried
him. Later he made a living by selling his teacher's
family formula and he became a famous doctor.
The shape of this medicinal herb is very strange. The
edges of the stems look like ox knees. So the youngest
student named it "nili xi", Chinese for "ox knee".
[Jo~[!]
[]]rnrnrn[D[rJ~~~~m
[m0[][IDrm
 NAME
English name: Willowleaf Rhizome
Pharmaceutical name : Rhizoma et Radix
Cynanchi Stauntonii

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent, bitter and slightly warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung

ACTIONS
1. Downbears qi to resolve ph legm
2. Moistens the lung to relieve cough

32 and asthma

INDICATIONS
1. Syndromes of cough, asthma and
profuse phlegm
2. Cough due to externally contracted
wind cold

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

3·1 Og ., decocted in water for oral use

156
 B6i Qi6V\

hen Hua Tuo was practicing medicine in

Henan, he arrived one rainy day at a village
named Baijia, where he stayed in a hotel owned by a
man named Bai. At midnight, Hua Tuo was woken up
by a child's crying and coughing. He quickly
, rose and
woke the owner.
"Whose son is crying?" asked Hua Tuo. 157
"He lives behind the hotel," replied the owner.
"Good gracious! He is seriously ill and 1 am afraid
he might die tomorrow."
"How can you say that?" the owner rudely asked.
"I am a doctor. 1 can hear that the sound of his
cough is not normal."
Then the owner changed his manner and bowed
deeply. "Please give the child an effective cure. He
has been ill for several days and he is very piteous."
The owner led Hua Tuo behind the hotel and
knocked at a door opened by a young couple who
quickly invited Hua Tuo into their house. He looked
 at the sick child's face, listened to his cough and felt
his pulse.
"To save this child's life, we need a certain herb,"
Hua Tuo finally said.
"How can we trouble you on such a rainy night?"
"Let's not talk any more. The most important thing
is to save the child. Hurry!"
It was raining harder and harder. The road was
very slippery and difficult to walk upon.
With the child's father at the lead, lantern in hand,
1 Hua Tuo looked everywhere for this special medicinal
herb. At last, he found it on the bank of a small river
in front of the hotel. After digging it up and cutting
off its roots, Hua Tuo asked the parents to decoct
it for the child and he gave them the leaves of the
plant.
"Tomorrow you can dig up some more. He will be
cured completely with several more doses. This is a
good medicine for curing coughs and phlegm," said
Hua Tuo.
"Thank you! Please rest now. You have been busy
for half the night," said the young couple.
The next day, the young couple came to the hotel
to express their thanks to the doctor with gifts. But
Hua Tuo was no longer there.
"The doctor went away before dawn," said the
owner.
"We haven't thanked him, nor asked his name."
"Don't you know who he is? He is Doctor Hua Tuo."
"Oh, no wonder his medical skill is so good and he
is so kind-hearted. He is a living immortal!"
The sick child's father dug up more herb roots
matching the leaves left by Hua Tuo and decocted it
for his son. Soon, the child was completely cured.
From that time onwards, the people of Baijia village
all knew that this medicinal herb could cure cough.
But they didn't know its name. Later, because they
said that the medicinal herb was found in front of
the door of Baijia, they named it bai qian.

CJw~§]@iJ
D[]E1[EJ~[£][]j[]E][OO
 NAME
English name : Snakegourd Fruit
Pharmaceutical name : Fructus
Trichosanthis

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet, cold and slightly bitter

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung, Stomach and Large Intestine

ACTIONS
1. Clears heat and resolves phlegm
2. Loosens the chest and dissipates

33 stagnation
3. Moistens the intestines to relieve
constipation

INDICATIONS
1. Cough and asthma due to phlegm -
heat
2. Chest impediment, chest accumulation
3. Pulmonary abscess, intestinal abscess
and breast abscess
4. Constipation due to intestinal dryness

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6- 12g . gu o lou pf(skin) and 9 -15g .
guo lou z i (seed), decocted in water
for oral use

160
 n the southern area stood a big mountain with
many caves which was covered by clouds and
thick forest. People said that some immortals lived
there.
There was a woodman who often went to the
mountain to cut firewood. One morning, he was
thirsty and hungry after he had cut two bundles of 16 1
firewood, and he came to the outside of a cave where
he could hear the sound of running water. In front
of the cave, there grew a few high and thick old trees
and a stream of spring water flowed there. He put
down his firewood and drank some spring water with
his hands, then entered the cave. Although the cave
was very big, he reached its end after walking only
a few steps, then he came out and lay on a stone
slab in the shade for a rest. As he lay there, he heard
someone speaking. Turning around, he saw that un-
der the opposite tree sat two old men, one with a
grey beard and the other with a black beard.
 "Where are they from in this remote mountain?
Are they immortals?" he wondered.
He stayed motionless, listening to these two im-
mortals chatting.
"What a big pair of golden gourds we have growing
in our cave this year!" said the black-bearded man.
"Don't speak so loudly! There is a woodsman lying
over there. If he hears, he will steal our treasure," re-
plied the other.
"What is there to be afraid of? Even if he hears, he
162 can't enter the cave, unless at noon on July 7th, he
stands here, and says: 'The door of heaven opens, the
door of hell opens, the host for picking the golden
gourds enters!'"
"Stop it! Let's just continue to play chess."
When the woodsman heard this, he was very
happy. But then he clumsily fell down to the ground
and opened his eyes. Where were the immortals? It
was only a dream! Disappointed, he picked up his
firewood and went home. But he kept these words in
mind.
The woodman wanted to find out whether the
words he heard in his dream would work or not. On
July 7th, he returned to the cave. At noon, he came
near the mouth of the cave.
'The door of heaven opens, the door of hell opens,
the host for picking the golden gourds enters!'" said
the woodsman.
Suddenly, a stone door on his right opened before
his eyes. Inside the first cave appeared another cave.
Entering it, he was excited to see a green vine
growing there with a pair of golden gourds on it. Cut-
ting them loose with his woodsman's knife, he quick-
ly ran home with them. Once home, he took a careful 163
look at them and was surprised to see that they were
only two common gourds. Because he thought he had
been deceived, he threw them aside.
A few days later, when he returned to the moun-
tain to cut firewood, he again came to the cave and
lay on the stone slab for a rest. As soon as he fell
asleep, those two immortals reappeared under the
tree.
"You are to blame for shooting off your mouth.
The golden gourds in the cave have been stolen!"
complained the gray-bearded man.
"Don't worry. It does him no good for having sto-
 len them. They are not real golden gourds," said the
other.
"Why do you say they're useless? They are valuable
medicine, more valuable than gold."
"But only after they have been dried to red, do
they have the function of moistening the Lungs and
reducing heat."
The woodsman woke up from his dream and hur-
ried home to find the two gourds. But they had al-
ready rotted completely. He removed their seeds and
164 planted them in his yard the next spring. A few years
later, many golden gourds grew in his yard, and he
cured people's illness with them. Patients suffering
from cough and asthma due to excessive phlegm took
this gourd, and became well. They were all surprised
at this, and discussed what they should name it.
When the woodsman considered that the gourd-vine
needed to climb a trellis before it could bear fruit, he
named it gua lou".

[J[[][lf][lf]~
EJLJLJLJEJEJ[!][!J~[!]OO
00
165
 NAME
English name : Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb
Pharmaceutical name : Bulbus Fritillaria

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sichuan Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb (chuon bei
mOl- bitter, sweet, and slightly cold

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung and Heart

ACTIONS
1. Sichuan Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb (chuon
bei mOl: clears lung heat to resolve phlegm,
moisten the lungs to relieve cough , and
dissipates blockages to relieve swelling
2. Zhejiang Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb (zhe
bei mOl clears heat to resolve phlegm ,

34 and dissipates stagnation to relieve abscess

INDICATIONS
1. Sichuan Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb ((huon
bei mOl : (1) cough due to deficient con-
sumption, dry cough due to lung heat.
(2) scrofula due to stagnant phlegm fire,
mammary abscess and pulmonary ab-
scess due to accumulation of heat toxin.
2. Zhejiang Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb (zhe
bei m Ol: (1) cough due to wind heat,
phlegm heat and dryness heat (2) scrof-
ula due to stagnant phlegm fire, mam -
mary abscess and pulmonary abscess
due to accumulation of heat toxin .
3. Both Sichuan Tendrilleaf Fritillary Bulb
(chuon bei mOl and Zhejiang Tendrilleaf
Fritillary Bulb (zhe bei m Ol are used to
treat the syndromes of scrofula, goiter,
mammary abscess, pulmonary abscess
sores and ulcers

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

3-10g. for the decoction, or 1-2g. for the
powder

166
 Bei Mlt

nce upon a time, there was a pregnant woman

who had pulmonary tuberculosis. Because the
woman was very weak, as soon as the baby was born,
she fainted and the baby died. Exactly the same thing
happened again one year later. Her husband and her
parents-in-law were very upset.
One day, a fortune-teller was passing by their 167
house-gate and the mother-in-law asked him to pre-
dict her daughter-in-law's future. He asked for her
history, and the old lady told him that her daughter-in-
law had given birth to three babies, but they all had
died shortly afterwards. Therefore, she was eager to
know whether her daughter-in-law would successfully
give birth to a fine baby or not.
The fortune-teller asked about the daughter's
birthday and constellation. He said: "She was born at
7 pm in the year of Tiger. The Tiger at 7 pm is usually
very ferocious; the first baby was born in the year of
sheep, the second in the year of dog, and the third in
 the year of pig. Sheep, dog and pig are the the tiger's
favorite foods. Therefore, all these babies were eaten
by their mother."
The old lady could not believe this, and said: "Just
because the tiger is a brutal animal, doesn't mean the
tiger will eat its own baby. Surely, my daughter-in-
law would absolutely not eat her own baby!"
The fortune-teller answered, "It is so destined. She
has no choice."
The lady then asked: "Isn't there any way to save
168 the next born baby?"
The teller reckoned, counting on his fingers: "There
is one way to save the next baby, but it is rather
complicated. "
"We have only one child - my son. So we really
hope to have a grandchild to continue our family
line. We are willing to pay any cost for a baby."
"The next time she has a baby, someone should
hold it in his arms and run towards the east at top
speed. But the mother should not be told about this.
About one hundred miles from here, there is an is-
land. Once the baby arrives on the island, he will be
safe because the tiger is scared of water, so she can't
reach the island."
The mother told her husband and her son about
the fortune-teller's idea. They all believed it would
work.
One year later, the daughter-in-law gave birth
to another baby. As soon as the baby was born, the
young woman again blacked out. The husband held
the baby in his arms and ran towards the east but
only ten miles away, the baby died. The whole family
was deeply grieved and scarcely knew what to do.
The next day, the fortune-teller came again. The 169
mother told him about the death of the baby. The
fortune-teller said: "You carried the baby too slowly. I
meant that you should run faster than the tiger. Only
if the tiger cannot catch the baby, will he be safe!"
Another year passed, and they expected another
baby. The husband bought a strong stallion, and was
ready to take the new baby away as fast as possible.
After the baby was born, the husband wrapped it in
a red sheet, mounted on the horse, and raced off like
a shooting star towards the east. After a hundred mi-
les, they arrived at the shore of the East Sea and rode
in a fast boat to an island.
 Five days later, the husband returned from the
island and said: "The baby died three days after we
landed on that island." Everyone was sorrowed when
they heard. The old couple so longed for a grandchild
that they wanted their son to divorce his wife and
marry a woman who could give them a healthy baby.
When she heard this, the daughter-in-law cried
bitterly. While she was crying, a doctor came to their
house and asked her: "Why are you crying? What is
your trouble?" The daughter-in-law told the doctor
170 everything.
The doctor looked at her face for a while, and said:
"You have a disease. I can cure it, so that you can
give birth to a healthy baby."
The doctor assured them, "The fortune-teller was
totally wrong; you people should not believe him.
Your daughter is not a tiger, but she has an illness in
her Lung, plus a weak body. She was exhausted by
labor, so the baby couldn't live long. Also she has
insufficient blood in her liver. That's why she always
faints after giving birth. I want her to take a certain
medicinal herb for three months. If she does, she can
successfully give birth to a healthy baby."
 The family decided to try the doctor's advice. From
then on, the husband went to the mountain every
day to get this special herb.
After using the herb for three months, the daughter
was pregnant again; ten months later; she gave birth
to a big baby. Happily, the daughter-in-law did not
faint after the birth; and the baby was healthy.
When the baby was one hundred days old, they
bought many gifts for the doctor.
The doctor was happy too, he asked: "Did that
herb really work for you?" 171
"Yes, it worked! By the way, what's its name?"
"It's a wild plant, probably it has no name."
"Then we should give it a name! My baby's name
is 'Baobei' (treasure baby), so let's call it 'bei mu'!" (In
Chinese, bei means the baby; mu means the mother.)
Since then the name bei mu has been passed down
from one generation to another.

QJ~[2J[BJ
~~[!]~~
 NAME
English name : Hindu Datura Flower
Pharmaceutical name : Flos Datura Metel

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent, warm, and toxic

CHANNELS ENTERED . . . . . ... .

Heart, Lung and Spleen

ACTIONS
1. Checks cough and relieving asthma
2. Arrests pain and settles convulsion

35 INDICATIONS
1.
2.
Cough and asthma
Wind -damp arthralgia
3. Trauma
4. Epilepsy, convulsion, spasm
5. Stubborn lichen

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

An appropriate amount for externa l
use ; 0.2 -0.6g .

172
 ~~~~
Zu. Xia""Tao

" hy is my son-in-law unhappy?" asked the

emperor.
The attendants were all confused. How could they
know? They didn't dare guess before the emperor.
"Who can make my son-in-law go to bed without
his clothes?" angrily demanded the emperor.
Now, the attendants were even more afraid to 173
speak. Finally, an old man knelt down before the em-
peror.
"I have a way to make him go to bed and take off
his own clothes," said the old attendant.
"Speak up! Be quick!"
"Please give a feast for him in your palace, and al-
low me to sit beside him. I will do the rest."
"Very good!"
That night, the emperor's son-in-law was invited to
a feast in the palace. The old attendant sitting next to
him stealthily put the powdered seeds of stramonium
into his wine. The emperor's son-in-law unwittingly
 drank several cups of the drugged wine.
Late at night, after the feast when the emperor's
son-in-law went home, the medicine began to work.
Semiconscious, he took off his clothes and went to
bed, where the princess was astonished to discover
that her husband was actually a woman. She hadn't
taken off her clothes before because she had feared
that she would give herself away.
When it was bright and the drug wore off, the em-
peror's "son-in-law" woke up and explained her story
174 to the princess. The woman's husband was supposed
to take the examinations, but as the examination date
drew near he became ill. So she went to the capital
to take the examination in her husband's stead. Un-
expectedly, she was admitted and the emperor took
her as his son-in-law. In this way the masquerade had
continued.
As soon as the princess told his father about this,
the marriage had to be put to an end.
"What medicine did you use?" the emperor later
asked his attendant.
The attendant didn't dare tell the truth because at
that time people only knew that stramonium was poi-
sonous and it could only be used externally for rheu-
matism, beriberi, and so on. Only the old man knew
that it was also a kind of anesthetic, but if he told the
truth, the emperor might suspect that he had wanted
to kill his son-in-law. So the attendant answered:
"1 put a kind of medicine in the wine. It's called zui
xian tao."
Because "zui xian tao" was a beautiful name, the
emperor thought no more about it. And so the name
was handed down to this day.
175
[]ITJ@]@][KJ[!][!JOCJ~~~
~~~~
[][I][TIlm~
[J[IJrnrn[E]cm~[Jill~~

o
,
01

o
~
r

~
co
&
U
 NAME
English name: Cinnabar
Pharmaceutical name : Cinnabaris

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet, slightly, cold and toxic

CHANNELS ENTERED
Heart

ACTIONS
1. Clears the Heart and settles fright
2. Calms the mind and the resolves
toxins

36 INDICATIONS
1. Disquiet mind, palpitations and
insomnia
2. Infantile convu lsion and epilepsy
3. Sores and ulcers
4. Swollen and painful throat, aphtha
and tongue sores

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

0.1 -0.Sg., ground into powder and
taken with water, or made into pills;
external usage as per appropriate
dosage .

176
 ~~
ZhuSha

ong ago, because people believed in supersti-

tions, when they were ill they didn't go to see
a doctor but often went to necromancers instead.
There was an illness named mania and withdrawal
that no doctor could cure. Strangely, whenever the
necromancer treated it, he could cure it. So the peo-
ple trusted necromancers rather than doctors. 177
There was a man with some knowledge of medi-
cine. He thought that since the necromancers could
only draw magic figures, chant incantations and
pretend to be gods and spirits, how could they re-
ally cure illness? He guessed that there must be some
other reason. So he talked it over with his wife and
thought of a plan to discover the necromancer's se-
cret.
One day his wife went to the necromancer and told
him that her husband was suffering from mania and
withdrawal disease.
The necromancer quickly came to their home.
 There he saw the patient lying on the ground, speak-
ing crazily, with his hair disheveled and a muddy
face.
"Ah, I am the son-in-law of the Jade Emperor. .. "
the patient said deliriously.
When the necromancer believed that the man was
really insane, he burned torches, sprinkled resin and
set up a mahogany stick in his preparations to drive
away the "Ghosts". He placed a bowl of clear water
on a table. Then he held up a magic figure and began
178 to recite.
"Mysterious Heaven, mysterious world ... " chanted
the necromancer.
Just as the necromancer was about to burn the
magic figure, the man jumped up, grabbed it sud-
denly, and kicked the necromancer out of his house.
"I am the son-in-law of the Jade Emperor. How dare
you treat me in such an impolite way? Go away! You
devil!" he shouted.
The necromancer was kicked out upon the ground
outside the house. When he stood up, the door was
already been tightly closed. Although he cried out
for a long time, nobody inside listened to him. So he
had to go home and accept his bad luck without com-
plaint.
Inside the room, the man drank a mouthful of wa-
ter from the bowl first, but it was tasteless and really
a bowl of clear water. Looking at the magic figure, he
found nothing strange. "These can't cure illness," he
thought. At last, he stared at the "zhu sha" that was to
be used for painting. But he didn't know if it could
cure illness.
The next day, he summoned a person who suffered
from mania and withdrawal disease to his house and 179
asked him to drink the water with a little zM sha in
it. After drinking this, the patient gradually became
cured.
From that time on, the man knew that the necro-
mancer could drive ghosts away and cure insanity,
only because the zhu sha on the magic figure had
medical properties. In this way, zM sha became a kind
of Chinese medicine.

o[::JE][IJrn[IJ
LJ00000~~~
 NAME
English name : Ginseng
Pharmaceutical name: Radix et Rhizoma
Ginseng

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet , sl ightly bitter, and slightly
warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Sp leen, Lung and Heart

ACTIONS
1. Supplements original qi

37 2. Supplements the Spleen and Lung

3. Engenders the body fluids
4 . Qu iets the spirit and boosts
inte ll igence

INDICATIONS
1. Co ll apse syndrome with original qi
deficiency
2. Qi deficiency syndrome of t he Sp leen
and Stomach
3. Thirst and diabetes due to deficien-
cy of qi and impairment of body
fluids

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

Decocted in water ; 3- 19g. for oral use ;
up to 30g. for deficiency collapse
syndrome.

180
 nce upon a time, two brothers went up the
mountain to hunt.
"Already it's late autumn; winter will soon come
and the weather on the mountain is very changeable.
When the mountain is covered with snow" you won't
be able to come down," people tried to warn them.
As the old saying goes, "the newborn calf doesn't 181
fear the tiger," and so, the two brothers wouldn't lis-
ten to the old people's advice. Taking their bows, ar-
rows, leather clothes and food supplies, they climbed
up the mountain.
For a few days, they hunted many animals. But
suddenly one afternoon, the weather changed. The
wind was blowing very hard and it snowed heavily
for two days and nights until all of the mountain was
covered with snow. So the two brothers, just as the
old people predicted, couldn't return from the moun-
tain.
They were forced to hide in a remote area of the
 mountain among the thickly grown trees to wait until
the snowstorm stopped.
Some of these trees were more than 100 meters
high, and the tree trunks were very thick. One of
them had been dead for many years and its heart
had rotted, so the two brothers transformed it into a
big tree cave. They made fires in it and roasted the
meat of the river deer, roe deer and hares they had
caught while they warmed themselves by the fire.
When the weather was fine, they went out hunting.
182' In order to save food, they also dug up some grass
to eat. Later they found a kind of vine with stalks
as thick as a man's arms. Its spreading fibrous roots
looked like a man's arms and legs and they tasted
sweet.
"The sweet grass is a beneficial one," said the elder
brother. So they dug up many of them and filled half
of the tree hole with them. After eating these, they
felt much stronger. But when they ate a lot of them,
their noses began bleeding. So they didn't dare to eat
a lot of the roots, but only a little every day.
Hunting by day and sleeping in the hole in the tree
at night, they stayed in this spot for the entire win-
ter. When spring came, the wind stopped, the snow
melted, and they came down the mountain with a big
bag of meat.
The villagers had believed that even if the two
brothers did not die of cold, they would have died of
hunger. When they saw the two brothers return look-
ing healthy and fat, they were all very surprised.
"You are still alive?" people asked.
"Don't we look alive?"
"What did you eat that made you so strong?"
The two brothers showed the grass roots to the vil-
lagers, who had never seen such things.
"Oh, look, how they resemble man!" said the
villagers.
Later people called these roots, "Ren Shen" - the
human body.

[2][2;]
tJ~~0~~~[!]
 NAME
English name : Common Yam Rhizome
Pharmaceutical name : Radix Dio5coreae

NATURE AND FLAVOR . . .. . . .. .

Sweet and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED .....

Lung, Kidney and Spleen

ACTIONS
1. Supplements the spleen and
nourishes the stomach
2. Engenders the fluids to boost the

38 lung
3. Supplements the kidney and
astringes the essence

INDICATION
1. Spleen deficiency syndrome
2. Lung deficiency syndrome
3. Kidney deficiency syndrome
4. Diabetes due to deficiency of qi
and yin

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

1 5-30g., for decoction ; or grind into
fine powder and take 6-9g powder
each time.

184
 n ancient times, China was divided into many
small countries. These countries always fought
with each other in order to forcibly occupy each
other's territory.
Once a strong country defeated a weaker country
and drove the remaining few thousand soldiers of its
defeated army up onto a big mountain. The conquer- 185
ing army then besieged the mountain so all food sup-
plies would be cut off from outside, and the defeated
army would be forced to emerge and surrender. How-
ever, after one year had passed no one emerged from
the mountain. The stronger army then decided that
the surrounded soldiers must have starved to death.
Unexpectedly, one night the besieged army fought
their way out from the mountain and charged the en-
emy position. Because the strong country's army had
not been drilling and fighting for almost one year, it
was no longer a 'strong' army. The 'weak' army was
able to turn the tide and take back its occupied terri-
tory.
However, no one could understand how the 'weak'
army could have survived for so long without a food
supply. Later, it was known that the soldiers on the
mountain had been eating the root of a wild plant
during the previous year. Every summer, this plant
would blossom with pretty white flowers; its root was
big and it had a sweet taste. It seemed amazing that
this wild plant had saved thousands of soldiers. It
was given the name shan yu, (shan means mountain;
yu means meeting) to mean that the plant was found
in the mountain when people were desperately look-
ing for food.
Later it was discovered that in addition to being
used as food, it could be used as a medicine to fortify
the Spleen and Stomach, supplement the Lung and
Kidney. It also had the medicinal functions of curing
diarrhea from weak Spleen.
Thereafter, it was used as a medicinal herb. People
eventually changed its name from shan yu to shan yilO.
(YilO means an herb or a medicine).
[!]GgQiJ
EJEJEJ~~[D~~~
f
 NAM E
English name : Licorice Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix et Rhizoma
Glycyrrhizae

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED
Lung, Heart , Spleen and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Supplements the spleen and boosts
qi

39 2. Dispels phlegm to relieve cough

3. Relaxes spasm to stop pain
4. Clears heat and resolves toxin
5. Moderates the properties of other
herbs

INDICATIONS
1. Syndrome of spleen qi deficiency,
with shortness of breath, lassitude,
poor appetite, loose stoo ls, etc.
2. Cough and asthma
3. Carbuncle and sores, due to heat
toxin
4. Food poisoning or drug poisoning
5. Pain of epigastrium and abdomen,
pain and spasm of the limbs

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

1 5g ., decocted in water for oral use.

188
 nce an old country doctor was invited to an-
other village, and he was gone for a few days.
During this period of time, many people in his own
village fell ill and each one was eager to see the doctor.
The doctor's wife was worried. "Usually my hus-
band cures disease with a few kinds of grass. There
is some dry grass we use as firewood at home, and 189
it tastes sweet. If I give it as medicine, it may not do
any harm. Besides, if the patients aren't worried, they
will feel a little better," she thought. So she cut the
sweet dry grass into pieces and wrapped them up
into small parcels. Whoever came by to see the doc-
tor was given one of the parcels.
"This is what my husband left behind. He said that
it could cure all kinds of diseases. Please take these
herbs home, decoct them and drink the medicinal
liquid," she told the patients.
The patients were very grateful and they insisted
on paying her money.
 "First, you can take them home; later, you can pay
me," she answered.
In this way, many patients became better and bet-
ter until they were well after taking this dry grass
which was used as firewood.
A few days later, the doctor returned home. Many
people came by to pay him for the medicine. But the
old doctor was quite baffled.
"Payments for what medicine? I haven't given you
medicine!" he said.
190 "They are for the medicine that you left at your
home. Your wife has cured our diseases with them."
The doctor was even more confused. He called his
wife out.
"How can you cure diseases? What medicine did
you give them?" he asked her.
His wife had him receive the patients' payments
first. When the people had left, she explained to him
what she did. The old doctor was very surprised.
"Even if this kind of grass can cure disease, all
these people suffered from different illnesses. How
can it cure all of them?" he wondered.
The next day he found all the people who had
taken this medicine and asked them about their con-
ditions. Among them, some had spleen and stomach
disease; some suffered from coughing and phlegm;
some suffered from throat pain, carbuncle, swelling
and fetal toxin. When he examined them, all were
now well.
From that time, the doctor began using the dry
grass as a medicine. He came to know that this kind
of grass could not only enrich the Qi and middle
burner, but also purge fire and remove toxin. Later
people gave the grass a medicinal name gan cao - 191
sweet grass.

B[E[it][tt][ill
EJEJEJEJEJL:J[!J[!][!J
 NAME
English name: Himalayan Teasel Root
Pharmaceutical name: Radix Dipsaci

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Bitter, pungent and sli ghtly warm

CHANNELS ENTERED · ................ .

Kidney and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Supplements both the liver and
kidney
2. Strengthens the sinews and bones

40 3. Stanches bleed ing and quiets the

fetus
4. Rehabilitates fractured bone

INDICATIONS
1. Pain and soreness of the lumbus
and knees
2. Impotence, emission, en ur esis,
metrorrhagia and metrostaxis,
restless fetus
3. Damage to sinews and bones

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-1 5g, decocted in water for oral use;
ground into powder for external
use and applied to the affected
area

192
 ong ago there was a itinerant herbal doctor
who went from place to place collecting and
selling medicinal herbs and thus curing people's ill-
nesses.
One day he came to a mountain village. It hap-
pened that a young man in the village had just died
and his relatives were holding him and crying sadly. 193
Coming over to look at the dead man, he discovered
that he wasn't dead. When he felt the young man's
pulse, he found it was still beating, although weakly.
So he approached an old man who was crying.
"How did he die?"
"He died suddenly of a high fever."
"How long ago?"
"About two hours ago."
"Don't cry! He can be saved!"
"Oh, please save him at once. He is my only son."
Opening his medical gourd and pouring two pills
out from it, the herbal doctor asked the people
around to open the young man's teeth and he poured
the pills into his stomach with some water. After a
while, the young man suddenly gasped.
"He will be all right after two days of bedrest," said
the herbal doctor.
The old man quickly knelt down before the doctor
and kowtowed to him three times.
"You are really a living Buddha. What kind of med-
icine is it that brings the dead back to life?" asked the
man.
"It's the pellet that has revived him."
The news immediately spread all over the village.
All the people asked the herbal doctor to stay there
and to cure their sick relatives.
In this village, there was also a mountain strong-
man who owned a shop where he sold dried mediCi-
nal herbs. When he was told that the herbal doctor
had a pellet which could revive people, he became
infuriated. One day, he invited the herbal doctor to a
big dinner prepared in the latter's honor.
"What can I do for you?" asked the herbal doctor.
"Please sit down and have a drink first," said the
tyrant.
 "How can I drink when I don't understand why?"
At this, the shop owner had to say what he wanted.
"Can you make the pellet for reviving dead people?
Let's set up a medical shop together."
"A shop?"
"I am sure that you can make a fortune with it."
"No. This pellet is handed down in my family only
to save people, not to make money."
"Then you can tell me how to make it. I can prom-
ise you whatever you want."
But the herbal doctor only shook his head in refusal.
"Humph! To refuse a toast is only to drink a forfeit!
If you don't offer your pellet prescription to me to-
day, I will break your legs!"
"No matter what you do, my pellets are only of-
fered to the patients."
Immediately the strongman waved his hand and
several of his goons dragged the herbal doctor to the
yard and beat him half to death. He was then thrown
out.
Filled with pain, the herbal doctor climbed up the
mountain, gathered some medicinal herbs and ate
them.
 A month later, he was selling medicine again from
village to village. Seeing this, the bully again called
his hatchet men and told them to completely break
the herbal doctor's legs. When they attacked the
herbal doctor this time, they beat him more seriously
so that his legs were broken into several pieces. Then
they threw him into a valley to feed the wolves.
This time the itinerant doctor couldn't even rise to
his feet. He could only lie there in the valley.
A young man who was cutting firewood sawall
this and quickly realized that it was the kind-hearted
herbal doctor.
As the herbal doctor couldn't speak, he gestured
to the young man to carry him on his back up the
mountain slope. There, he pointed at a kind of wild
grass with feather-like leaves and purple flowers.
When the young man understood his meaning, he
immediately dug up a lot of the grass and carried
him back to his own home, where he decocted the
medicinal herb for him. Two months later, the herbal
doctor was again cured.
"I can't live here any longer. This kind of medicinal
herb to set bones can be passed on to other people
by you," said the herbal doctor to the young man.
But while they were talking, the mountain tyrant
came again with his hatchet men. Seeing that the
herbal doctor was still alive, he ordered his man to
kill him.
After the herbal doctor died , the young man
passed on the knowledge about the medicinal herb to
the villagers according to the doctor's will and named it
xu duan, meaning that it could set broken bones. But
the itinerant herbal doctor's pellet for reviving was
lost.

D0ITJ[t][t][B~~~lm~
ITJ[][]@][!][!][!][!][!]~~
 NAME .....
English name: Dodder Seed
Pharmaceutical name : Semen Cuscutae

NATURE AND FLAVOR ' ............. .

Pungent, sweet and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED . . ............ .

Liver, Kidney and Spleen

ACTIONS
1. Supplements yang and nourishes yin
2. Supplements the kidney and boosts
essence

41 3. Nourishes the liver to brighten the

eyes
4 . Stanches diarrh ea
S. Quiets the fetus

INDICATIONS
Aching lumbus and legs , impotence,
spermatorrhea , frequent urination,
infertility due to cold in the uterus
1. Insufficiency of the kidney and liver
2. Diarrhea or loose stools due to
spleen and kidney deficiency
3. Stirring fetus due to deficiency of
the kidney

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

10-20g. , decocted in water for oral use

198
 ears ago there was a landlord who liked to
raise rabbits. He had many kinds of them,
white, black, gray, and so forth. He also employed a
farmhand to raise the rabbits for him and stipulated
that if one rabbit died, he would deduct a part of the
farmhand's salary.
One day the farmhand accidentally hurt a white 199
rabbit with a stick. It was lying on the ground, and
couldn't run. Fearing that the landlord would reduce
his salary, the farmhand secretly hid the rabbit in a
soybean field. But the landlord still discovered the
truth, and forced the farmhand to pay for it. Unable
to do anything else, the farmhand had to return to
the soybean field to bring the injured rabbit back.
But when he got there, he saw the white rabbit
running back and forth looking for something to
eat. He was surprised, and only caught it with great
effort. Looking at it carefully, he saw that the rabbit
was apparently uninjured. The more he thought
 about it, the more he felt it was strange.
Later, driven by curiosity, he deliberately hurt a
gray rabbit and threw it into the same field. A few
days later, he saw that the gray rabbit's injury had
also disappeared. He went home and told his father
about all this. His father's lower back had been hurt
by the landlord and he had had to stay in bed for
years.
"Try it again and find out what the rabbit eats.
Perhaps it is some medicinal herb that can set broken
200 bones," said his father.
According to his father's instructions, the
farmhand hurt another rabbit and put it in the field.
This time he stood off to the side, watching it. He saw
that the injured rabbit couldn't stand up to walk.
Since it couldn't reach the soybean leaves, it could
only stretch its neck to graze on the seeds of a kind
of wild yellow threadlike vine which twined round
the soybean straw. One, two, three days passed,
and the rabbit's injury was cured in this way. So the
farmhand collected some of the yellow threadlike
vine and its seeds and gave them to his father.
After looking at them for awhile, the old man knew
what it was.
"This is a kind of rank grass. It twists and twines,
and it can make the soybean die. Can it be that it is a
kind of 'immortal grass'? If it can cure the rabbit's injury,
perhaps it can cure man's too. Go gather more of it
and decoct it for me to try," said the old man.
So his son gathered a lot of these vines from the
soybean field. After taking this medicinal liquid for
a few days, his father could sit up in bed and a few
days later, he could walk. Two months passed, the
old man could even do some farm work. So the old 201
man and his son were sure that the seeds of this
yellow filiform vine could cure lumbar injury.
And so the farmhand stopped raising rabbits for
the landlord. He gathered this kind of medicinal
herb, made medicine and became a professional
doctor to cure lumbar injury. People who suffered
from it all came to him for a cure. Later, people asked
him about the name of this medicinal herb. Because
he thought that this grass had first cured the rabbits,
he named it til 51 z1 for them.

EJEJEJEJEJEJ~[!][!]OOOO
~0EJ@]~
owrn
 NAME
English name: Chinese Angelica Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix Angelicae
Sinensis

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet, pungent and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Heart, Liver and Spleen

ACTIONS
1. Supplements the blood to regulate
menstruation ;

42 2. Quickens the blood to relieve pain ;

3. Moi ste ns the intestine to loosen the
bowels ;

INDICATIONS
1. Blood deficiency, blood stasis, irregular
menstruation, amenorrhea,
dysmenorrhea, etc.
2. Abdominal pain due to cold deficiency,
traumatic injury
3. Abscess, sore and ulcer, wind -c old
arthralgia
4. Constipation due to blood deficiency
and dry intestine s

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

6-1 Sg., decocted in water for oral use

202
 here was a big mountain on which grass and
trees grew luxuriantly. Although there were
valuable medicinal herbs on the mountain, very few
people went there to collect them because many
poisonous snakes and beasts of prey also lived there.
Below the mountain there was a village. One day
the young villagers were chatting together. 203
"I am the bravest man in our village !"said one.
The others didn't believe him.
"If you are the bravest, do you dare go up the
mountain to gather medicinal herbs?" deliberately
asked the others.
"Who says I don't dare to? Wait until I return with
the medicinal herbs that can cure your disease of
cowardice."
"That's enough of your boasting! If you are bitten
by the poisonous snakes or the beasts of prey, we will
have to search for the medicine for your recovery."
But the young man didn't take back his boast. He
 swore that he would certainly go up the mountain to
gather medicinal herbs. But when he got home and
told his mother about it, she wouldn't consent to this.
"I have only one son: you. If anything should hap-
pen to you, our family might be childless," said his
mother.
"I have sworn my oath. If I don't go, I can't hold up
my head in the village."
"All right! But since you are engaged, you should
get married before you go and see to it that you'll
204 have a child to leave behind," said his mother after
thinking it over.
In this way, the son didn't go up the mountain for
a while. And as he couldn't bear to leave his bride, he
never spoke of going up the mountain.
Several months passed. The young villagers got to-
gether again, and they all criticized the bridegroom.
"You should take back your words, you king of
boasting!"
"Who boasts?" the young man was angry.
"You!"
"Not me!"
"Have you forgotten your promise?"
 Like any other young person, he was concerned
about saving face. How could he bear such words? He
went home.
"Please help me pack. 1 will go up the mountain
tomorrow to gather medicinal herbs," he said to his
wife.
"I won't let you go!" His wife threw herself into his
arms weeping.
"I must be a man! I can't let others say that I can
only love my wife."
"But how can 1 live if you leave me alone here?" 205
"I have talked it over with my mother. You can wait
for me for three years. If I don't return by then, you
may get remarried."
The next day, the young man left his mother and
his wife, and climbed the mountain. His wife lived
with her mother-in-law at home. One year passed, he
didn't return; then two years passed with no news
from him.
His wife wept all day and developed a very seri-
ous woman's disease because of sadness, worry and
deficiency of both Qj and blood. When the third year
passed, he didn't appear either.
 "You have waited for him for three years. It seems
that he will not return. Please return to your mother's
family and get remarried," the old woman said to her
daughter-in-law.
At first the wife refused, and her mother-in-law
urged her many times. Finally, she thought that her
husband was probably dead so she went to her mother's
family and married another man.
But a few days later her first husband suddenly re-
turned. It made a big stir in the whole village. When
206 the villagers saw that he had gathered so many medi-
cinal herbs, they all praised him for his bravery and
skills. But when he returned to his home, he didn't
find his wife there. He was very anxious.
"You made it clear beforehand. She waited for you
for three years and there was no news about you, so
she has remarried now," said his mother.
He was overcome with regret and hated himself
for not coming back earlier. As he couldn't forget his
wife, he sent a message to her that he wanted to meet
her one more time.
When his wife got the news that her former hus-
band was still alive, she wept and wept.
 "The die is cast. It does no good to regret it now.
Please go meet him since you two were once husband
and wife." So did others persuade her.
So they met each other. She was all tears.
"What a bitter life I have been living, waiting for
you for three years! I looked forward to seeing you
day and night. You should have come back within
three years, but you didn't. No word about you came
to me. Now I regret that I have remarried and I feel as
if a knife were piercing my heart," said the woman.
'Don't be grieved! You are not to blame. It's all my
fault. While I was up in mountain. I dug up a lot of
valuable and rare medicinal herbs. I stayed longer
because I wanted to collect more and bring them
back so I could buy a few suits of clothes for you
after I had sold them. I wish you a happy life in the
future," said the young man, sighing. Then he went
away.
The woman had already been ill, how could she
bear this? She fell down.
After a while, when she noticed that the young
man had left some medicinal herbs behind, and she
thought that if she recklessly ate some they might be
poison and would kill her. So she took some herbal
roots that she didn't recognize and ate them mouthful
by mouthful. But she was not poisoned. A few days
later, her pale face became a healthy red, and her
woman's disease was completely cured.
"How did you cure your disease?" she was asked.
In answer, she showed people the medicinal herb
that had been gathered by her former husband.
"My illness has been cured only because I have
eaten this," she said.
So people remembered that this medicinal herb
could particularly cure woman's diseases. Later some
people planted it and named it dang gUi - meaning
that one should return in time.
This is a story to let people remember that "when
a husband should return and doesn't, his wife will be
forced to marry someone else."

~~EJ[ii]@TIQTI
[][I][B~~
209
vr

NAME
English name : Lily Bulb
Pharmaceutical name: Bulbus Lili;

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Sweet and slightly cold

CHANNELS ENTERED . . . . . .. . ....

Heart, Lung and Stomach

ACTIONS
1. Nourishes yin to moisten the lung
2. Clears the heart to quiet the mind

43 INDICATI ONS
1. Dry cough due to yin deficiency,
hemoptysis due to chronic cough
2. Palpitations, insomnia due to inter-
nal heat in the heart and lung

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

9-30g., decocted in water for oral use ,
fried with honey to strengthen the
effect of moistening the lung

2 10
 any years ago, there was a band of pirates
who robbed fishermen along the East China
Sea.
One day, the pirates came to the coast and robbed
a small village. They took loot, women and children
to an isolated island in the sea.
After several days, the robbers left the women and
children on the island and sailed off to somewhere
else. They were certain that there was no way for the
women and children to get off the island, so none of
the pirates stayed with them.
The next day, the weather became terrible: a big
rainstorm with high winds and huge waves reaching.
dozens of meters high. All the women ran to the sea
shore and prayed that the Dragon King would wreck
the pirates' ship. Fortunately, the ship did sink in
the storm and all the pirates were drowned, so the
women and children were very happy that the pirates
were not coming back. However, after they had eaten
 all the food they could find, they worried about the
next days. Where would they find food on this island?
Hunger drove them everywhere to seek food. They
ate everything they could: birds' eggs, wild fruit,
dead fishes, and so on.
One day, a woman brought a wild plant root to
the others; it looked like a bulb of garlic. After
being boiled for a little while, this root emitted a
nice slightly sweet aroma. It soon became the favorite
food on the island. In time, they found that the magi-
21 2 cal thing about this root was that it could not only be
used as food but also as a medicinal herb. They no-
ticed that after eating the root for some days, some
amongst them with weak bodies, consumption dam-
age and hemoptysis had miraculously recovered.
The next year, a doctor came to this island to
gather herbs. When he met the large numbers of
women and children stranded there, he was very sur-
prised that they could have lived without food: "There
are no crops growing on this island, but how is it that
you look so well-fed?"
Silently, women fetched some roots to show to the
doctor. By tasting a little bit of the root, the doctor
assumed this root had some medicinal nature.
After all of them had returned home from the is-
land, the doctor started to grow and study the root.
Later, the doctor found the root really had some cu-
rative effect, such as moistening the lung, stopping
cough, and clearing the heart to tranquilize mind.
Finally, the root was still unnamed.
Because the number of women and children he
had found on the island were one hundred, the doc-
tor thought, it was better to call the root b;'ji he, which
means a hundred people gathered together. 213

LlEJrTIlliJllilOO
0~~~~~

r r
 NAME
English name : Siberian So lomon's seal
Pharmaceutical name: Rhizoma Polvgonati

NATURE AND FLAVOR ............. .

Sweet and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED ' .............. .

Spleen , Lung and Kidney

ACTIONS
1. Supplements qi and nourishes yin
2. Fortifies the spleen, moistens the
lung and boosts the kidney

44 INDICATIONS
1. Yin deficiency and lung dryness
2. Dry cough and scanty phlegm
3. Yin deficiency of the lung and kidney
4. Cough due to overstrain

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION · ....

9-1 5g ., decocted in water for oral use

2 14
 ne day, when Hua Tuo was climbing the
mountain to gather medicinal herbs, he saw
two strong men running after a girl aged about 18 or
19 years old. She ran so quickly that she disappeared
in the twinkling of an eye, and although the two
strong men tried their best, they couldn't catch up to
her. Hua Tuo was very much surprised. 215
"Who are you after?" asked Hua Tuo.
"She is our masters servant girl. Because she didn't obey
her master, she was shut up in a hut three years ago.
Later she escaped, and no one knew where she was
and no one had seen her on the nearby mountain un-
til recently. The master sent us two brothers to catch
her, but it seems that she has changed a lot; now she
runs too quickly for us to catch up to her."
"A weak girl who has been living on the remote,
thickly forested mountain for three years, and she
has not only not died of hunger, but even become
stronger. Perhaps she has had some miraculous cure.
 I should find her and ask her," Hua Tuo thought to
himself.
Since then, whenever Hua Tuo went up the moun-
tain to gather medicinal herbs, he would look about
carefully for the girl. But because the girl had not
met human beings for a long time, she would run
away immediately whenever she saw Hua Tuo. After
observing her for many days, Hua Tuo at last found
that the girl often went to the cliff at the north moun-
tain. So he prepared some food and left it there. The
21 6 next day the food had disappeared. Because Hua Tuo
thought that it had been eaten by the girl, he pre-
pared some more food and put it in the same place.
Then he hid himself behind a stone to wait for her.
After a while, the girl appeared and, seeing no one
nearby, she seized the food and ate it. Taking advan-
tage of her preoccupation, Hua Tuo rushed out and
grasped her. The girl struggled against him, kicking
and scratching with her long fingernails. Even though
many parts of Hua Tuo's body were hurt, he didn't
let go of her.
"Good girl, don't be afraid! I am a doctor. I won't hurt
you. I would only like a few words with you," ex-
plained Hua Tuo.
She took a careful look and seeing that he was a
kind-looking old man, she stopped struggling.
"I know you have escaped from the landlord and
that if you are taken back, you will lose your life. But
you can't live here year round. As you see, I am over
fifty. Will you be my adopted daughter?" asked Hua
Tuo.
The girl thought for a while, then she knelt on the
ground before him and agreed.
Hua Tuo took her home and treated her as his own 217
daughter.
"What did you eat on the mountain?" asked Hua
Tuo one day.
"Everything."
"Anything special?"
"Yes! Huang ji. But not the yellow chicken with
wings."
"What is it?"
"It's the roots of a kind of wild grass. It's very much
like chicken."
"Lead me to look at it."
"All right."
 Leading Hua Tuo up the mountain, she pointed at
a kind of wild grass with white and green flowers.
"Here it is," she said.
Digging out the roots of this grass, Hua Tuo found
that the roots were thick, big, and yellow with squa-
mous spots. It was really like a yellow chicken.
Hua Tuo gave it to his patients to eat. He discovered
that it was truly a good medicine to build up health,
moisten lungs and promote body fluids.
Later, perhaps because people felt that huangji was
not much of a medicinal name, they changed it to
huangjIng (yellow essence).

LJ[:Jc:JEl~[!][!J[!]~[!]OO
DD0rnrn[I][[][iJ~~rm
~lMJ[H]
219
 NAME '
English name: Glossy Privet Fruit
Pharmaceutical name : Fructus Ligustr;
Lucid;

NATURE AND FLAVOR ·· ............ .

Sweet, bitter and cool

CHANNELS ENTERED ' ... .......... .

Liver and Kidney

ACTIONS ······· ..................... .

1. Enriches the liver and kidney
2. Blackens the hair and brightens the

45 eyes

INDICATIONS , ...... ................... .

1. Deficiency syndrome of liver and
kidney yin
2. Fever due to yin deficiency

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION ·' .. .

9-1 5g., decocted in water for oral use

220
 ~l~
N ~ Zhel'\ Z '(

ong ago there was a kind-hearted girl named

Zhen Zi married to an honest peasant. They
loved each other very much. Because wars were al-
ways breaking out, Zhen Zi's husband was forced to
be a soldier. Zhen Zi wept when her husband had to
leave.
"You must take care of yourself," she said.
"Don't worry about me. I will certainly return."
But Zhen Zi did not hear from him for three years.
She was desolate.
One day a soldier from the same village sent a
message that Zhen Zi's husband had died. When
she heard this, she fell down unconscious. After she
woke, she wept for more than ten days without eat-
ing and drinking anything.
A friend who lived next to Zhen Zi often came to
look after her. One day, Zhen Zi opened her eyes and
grasped her hand.
"Good sister, I will die very soon. I have no parents
or children. Can you promise me one thing? "
"Younger sister, what is it? Please tell me."
"After I die, please plant a Chinese ilex tree on
my grave. If he comes back, this tree will show my
heart."
With tears in her eyes, her elder sister promised.
Not long after Zhen Zi's death, her elder sister
planted a Chinese ilex tree on her grave. A few years
passed, and the tree grew tall.
One day, Zhen Zi's husband suddenly came back.
Zhen Zi's older sister told him what had happened
and led him to the grave. When he saw the tree, it
seemed as if his wife were saying to him "My heart
will be like the tree and never change." He could not
restrain himself. Throwing himself upon the grave,
he cried for three days and nights until his tears
thoroughly watered the tree. He began to suffer from
defiCiency of Yin, with signs of internal heat and diz-
ziness.
Surprisingly, the tree suddenly began to blossom
and soon had many fruits as large as beans.
All the villagers were surprised. "The Chinese ilex
tree never blossoms. This tree must have become an
immortal and has been changed into another kind
of tree." People ran to the grave to look and they
found that the tree leaves were unlike the other
Chinese ilex trees. So, people said that Zhen Zi had
become a fairy. When Zhen Zi's husband heard this,
he returned to the grave. Seeing the tree full of small
fruits, he was moved.
"Hasn't the tree received my wife's fairy breath? If
I eat these fruits, I will become an immortal. Then I
can meet Zhen Zi," he thought.
So he picked some fruit and ate it. Although he
didn't meet Zhen Zi, he ate the fruit for several days,
and his disease became better.
Thus people realized that the tree on Zhen Zi's
grave was medicinal and its fruit could nourish the
kidney and liver. They began to plant the seeds of
the tree and named it no zhen zI - the woman, Zhen
Zi.

[I][1J[±]
CJLJ~@]~[]]
owlIl
 NAME
English name : Cherokee Rose Fruit
Pharmaceutical name : Fructus Rosae
Laevigatae

NATURE AND FLAVOR . . .......... .

Sour, astringent and mild

CHANNELS ENTERED
Kidney, Urinary Bladder and Large
Intestine

ACTIONS
1. Secures nocturnal emission and re -

46 duces urinary frequency

2. Astringes the intestines to check
diarrhea

INDICATIONS
1. Seminal emission and seminal
efflux
2. Enuresis and frequent urination
3. Profuse leukorrhea
4. Protracted diarrhea and dysentery
5. Prolapse of the rectum and the
uterus
6. Metrorrhagia and metrostaxis

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION ' ....

6-18g., decocted in water for oral use

224
 ~mJ-
311'1 \,11'19 Z '(

nce upon a time, there were three brothers.

Of them, the eldest and the second brothers
had no sons, only the youngest brother had one. At
that time, because the male offspring of a family was
regarded as very important, the three brothers all
considered the boy like a pearl in the palm.
When the boy grew up, the three brothers were 225
eager to help him look for a wife. They invited one
after another go-between, but none were successful.
The young man was good in many ways, but he had
suffered from bed-wetting since his childhood and all
the villagers knew this, so no girl would marry him.
After talking it over, the three brothers decided to
cure their son's disease first. They sent for doctors
and looked for medicine everywhere, but nothing
was effective. This was a constant worry to them.
One day an old herbalist came to their house. On
his back he carried a medicinal gourd with a bundle
of golden tassels tied to it. The three brothers invited
 the old man into their house at once and asked him
if he had some medicinal herbs to cure bed-wetting.
"I have no such medicine in my gourd," said the
old man.
"We three brothers only have this one boy between
us. If he can't get married, our family will have no
heirs. Please help us."
"I know of one kind of medicinal herb. But you
have to go south to gather it and there is unhealthy
vapors everywhere. These vapors can poison people."
226 Hearing this, the three brothers all knelt before the
old man.
"Please undertake to get it for us!" they begged.
"Very well! I will do that for you," said the old
man, sighing.
Then the old man went south. One month passed,
and the old man didn't come back. Two months
passed, and he still didn't return. On the last day of
the third month, the old man returned, slowly strug-
gling to move. When people saw him, they were
astonished. They saw that the old man was swollen
all over his face. The three brothers hurriedly went
to the old man.
 "What's the matter with you?" they asked.
"I have been poisoned by the vapors!" weakly re-
plied the old man.
"Is there any medicine that can cure it?"
Shaking his head, the old man put his gourd on the
table and pointed at a fruit.
"This kind of medicine can cure your son's dis-
ease," said the old man and then he died.
The whole family were so moved that they all cried
loudly. They buried him in a grand manner and
named this medicinal herb jin ying (Golden Tassel) in 227
memory of the old man. Later, the three brothers de-
cocted the}in ying and had their son drink its liquid
for a few days. At last the disease was cured, and not
long afterwards, the young man got married. A year
later, a grandson was born to the three brothers.
As the years passed, people changed the name of
}in ying int0}in ying zi.

0B~~[±J[13[±]~
[Jrnrnrnrn[f][!][f][f]~~
~[j!]~~
Om[£]
 NAME '
Eng lish name : Dichroa Root
Pharmaceutical name : Radix Dichroae

NATURE AND FLAVOR .............. .

Pungent , bitter, cold, and toxic

CHANNELS ENTERED ............... .

Lung, Heart and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Induces vomiting of ph legm and
saliva
2. Checks malaria

47 INDICATIONS
1. Phlegm -fluid retention in the chest
2. Malaria

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

4 .5-9g ., use the crude herb for vomit-
ing; and the wine-baked herb for
malaria

228
 nce upon a time, there was a mountain named
Changshan.

Up on the mountain was an old temple where a

monk lived. He was so poor that he had to climb
down the mountain every day and beg for alms to
buy food.
Once he suffered from malaria. Every afternoon he 229
felt first cold, and then hot. The illness caused him
to become only skin and bone, and the shape of his
body had changed. But as he did not have any food
to eat, how could he possibly have enough silver to
see a doctor? So he had to continue his dreadful life
in this way.
One day, he came down the mountain begging for
alms. It was nearly noon, but he had gotten nothing.
He was so hungry that his belly was shouting, and
he thought that he must eat something. If not, how
could he stand the illness when it grew strong in the
afternoon? So he forced himself on. He came to the
 door of a poor family.
"We have nothing to eat either. We have just boiled
half a pot of soup with wild grass roots, but whoever
eats it will vomit. If you have a good appetite, you
may have it," said the host.
How could a beggar dare to choose his food? He
ate two bowls of the soup without stopping. It was
strange that after he ate it, he didn't vomit. When he
was full, he came to the side of a big haystack, and
he lay there to sun himself, and wait for his illness
230 to appear. But surprisingly, by sunset not only had
he not suffered from the malaria but instead he felt
comfortable.
His malaria didn't recur for a few days. Because he
thought that it was cured, he was very happy. But
one month later, his illness came again. When he re-
membered what had happened that day that it had
ceased, he hurried to that poor family's house.
"Where did you get those grass roots you had when
I came here for food the last time?" asked the monk.
"It's my thoughtless boy who found it. It's poison-
ous. Whoever eats it will vomit at once,' said the host.
"Can you have him lead me to look for it? I have a
use for it."
The boy did look a little foolish. He led the monk
up the mountain, where they found a kind of wild
grass with blue flowers. Its leaves were long and
round and sawtooth-like. He took it as before, and
the next day, sure enough, his illness didn't recur. He
went back to dig more of the grass and to plant it on
the open land around the temple. He ate it continu-
ously for many days and his malaria was completely
cured in this way.
From that time onwards, he cured patients of their
malaria when he met them while he went begging for
alms. This news spread quickly, and people all said
that the monk in the temple at Changshan could cure
malaria.
Soon people from villages nearby came to the old
temple for medicine.
"What's the name of the medicinal herb that can
cure malaria?" people asked.
Because the medicinal herb grew on Changshan Moun-
tain, the monk named it chang shan.
CJLJLJLJEJElElr:J~[!J[IJ
[!]QJ~
 NAME
English name : Black Falsehellebore
Root
Pharmaceutical name: Veratrum Nigrum

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent, bitter, cold and toxic

CHANNELS ENTERED ·' .............. .

Lung , Stomach and Liver

ACTIONS
1. Induces vomiting of wind phlegm
2. Kills worms

48 INDICATIONS " ....................... .

1. Mania
2. Epilepsy and wind stroke
3. Throat moth (diptheria), scabies,
and tinea capitis

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION · ....

0 .3·0 .9g, decocted in water for oral
use

232
 L. Lu

i hi is the name of a poisonous wild grass.

Even cows and sheep do not graze upon it. But
it also serves as a Chinese medicinal herb, and there
is an interesting story about it.
The youngest son of a family suffered from epi-
lepsy. Sometimes the illness would happen once a
year, and sometimes once a month or several times 233
a month. Its symptoms were different each time it
appeared. Sometimes the patient fainted into un-
consciousness or panted and foamed at the mouth.
Sometimes he was out of his mind and talked non-
sense or beat and scolded people, throwing and
smashing everything he could. Once when his illness
occurred, he wounded his neighbor's child and the
child's family asked his family to pay the medical ex-
penses. Another time he killed a neighbor's pig and
that neighbor asked his family to pay for it. Since the
madman stirred up trouble everywhere, his whole
family wished that he were dead.
 "What a curse he is in our family! Whenever he de-
stroys other people's things, we have to pay for them. If
he kills someone in the future, who is going to pay with
his life?" the eldest boy asked angrily one day.
"That's right! To raise such an evil creature is no
better than to have never had him. We should finish
him off," said the second son.
Although the old man and his wife couldn't bear
to end the life of their own son, they couldn't change
their sons' minds. So they washed their hands of this
234 business.
"There is some poisonous Ii Iii growing on the ridg-
es of the field which we can decoct for him to drink,"
the first boy said to the second.
"All right! I will get some tomorrow."
One day when the boy's illness occurred again,
his first and second brothers put him down upon
the ground. His first brother pried open his mouth
with a pair of scissors and his second brother poured
three bowls of the poisonous grass decoction into his
mouth. The whole family thought that he had died.
Surprisingly, after having been lying on the ground
for a while, he suddenly began vomiting: first clear
water, then phlegm. As his brothers feared that he
would spit out all of the herbal liquid, they put him
on the ground again and poured three more bowls
of the liquid into his mouth. After this, he vomited
even more seriously until his bile was spat out. But
after having vomited, he was now in his right mind.
He stood up and washed out his mouth, then he took
a bowl and fetched some food. After eating his meal,
he went to the fields with a hoe on his shoulder with-
out a single sign of madness.
The whole family were very surprised that the poi- 235
sonous grass liquid didn't kill him, but instead had
cured his epilepsy.
Could li Iii cure epilepsy?
Later someone in another family suffered from the
same kind of illness. They gathered li Iii to cure his
illness and it was really cured. From then on, li Iii was
known as a Chinese medicinal herb that especially
cured epilepsy.

LJDLJLJu~~~~EJEJ
~~~[I]~~[£J
DEJEJEl~[!][!]
 NAME ····· ........ .
English name: Common Cnidium Seed
Pharmaceutical name: Fructus enidii

NATURE AND FLAVOR ·· ............. .

Pungent, bitter and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED .......... . .. .

Kidney

ACTIONS ·
1. Dries dampness and kills worms
2. Rei ieves itch
3. Warms the kidney to strengthen

49 the yang

INDICATIONS · .
1. Impotence due to kidney deficiency
2. Leukorrhagia due to cold dampness
3. Pain in the loins due to dampness

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION ·

3-9g. for internal use; 15-30g. for external
use

236
 n a village there was a strange epidemic dis-
ease of a strange skin rash within people's
hair follicles. It was so itchy that people would con-
tinuously scratch it. Sometimes it bled, but it was still
itchy. This kind of rash spread very fast. Of course, if
people were wearing the same clothes or lying for a
while on the beds of sick people, they could catch the 237
disease, but also even if the patients' pieces of skin
flew off when they scratched and touched others'
skin, one would be infected. No matter what medi-
cine they had or what ointment they applied, it was
useless. Finally, a doctor came to them.
"There is an island 100 miles away from there. It
is said that on the island grows a kind of medicinal
herb with feather-like leaves and umbrella-like flow-
ers. When you decoct its fruit and take a bath in its
liquid, your disease may be cured. But no one can go
there to gather it because there are poisonous snakes
everywhere on the island," he said.
 When the villagers heard this, they were hopeless
and that they could do nothing.
Steeling his heart, one young man rowed to sea to-
wards the island, carrying a lot of food with him. But
he never returned after he left the village.
Then another young man followed in the same
way. But the same thing happened.
Probably these two young men were eaten by the
poisonous snakes. So the villagers gave up hoping
to get the medicinal herb from the snake island. But
238 when the itching began, people couldn't stand it.
Scratching and scratching, some tore their skins up
and even some had bones appear from under their
flesh. Some of the wounds were festering and became
big sores. Seeing that all the villagers were suffering
from this strange disease, a third young man prom-
ised through clenched teeth that he would certainly
get the medicine.
"Please don't go there! We would rather suffer. If
you go to the snake island, you will die," the old peo-
ple said.
"It all depends on human effort. I can't believe that
there is no way to control the poisonous snakes," re-
plied the young man.
One day he arrived at a big mountain on the sea-
side. There was a Buddhist nunnery on the mountain
and in it lived an old nun who was over 100 years
old. People said that she had been to the snake island
to get the snake gallbladders for medicine when she
was young. When he found the old nun, he asked if
she knew a way to get to the snake island.
"Although the poisonous snakes are fierce crea-
tures, they are afraid of wine with sulphur flavoring.
You can get to the island at noon on the Dragon Boat 239
Festival. As soon as you catch sight of the poison-
ous snakes, you must sprinkle the wine as you walk.
When the snakes notice the smell, they will run away
from you," said the old nun.
After thanking the old nun, the young man set off
for the sea with this kind of wine. He rowed to nearby
the island and dropped the anchors. He didn't row
ashore until exactly noon on the day of the Dragon
Boat Festival. The snakes could be seen everywhere
on the island. Some were a few feet long and some
were as thick as the mouth of a bowl. The young man
sprinkled the wine while he walked, and the poison-
 ous snakes stayed exactly where they were when they
smelled the wine. Hurriedly he dug up a lot of wild
grass with feather-like leaves and umbrella-like flow-
ers out from under the poisonous snakes.
At last he came back alive, succeeding not only in
finding a good way to control the poisonous snakes
but also in gathering the medicinal herb to treat the
disease for the villagers. He decocted the fruit of the
herb and the villagers took a bath in its liquid. Soon
they regained their health.
240 After that, the villagers planted this kind of grass
along the sides of the village and used it to cure tinea
and eczema. Since this kind of medicinal herb had
been dug out from under the poisonous snakes at
first, people named it she chuang and its seeds were
called she chuang zi - snake bed seeds.

[J0G[!][!][!][[][EJ~~~
DLJ[l][EJ[l1][]IJD!]
Omrn
(
" )~ 1
.• ~

r 241
 NAME
English name: Garlic Bulb
Pharmaceutical name: Bulbus Alii Sativi

NATURE AND FLAVOR

Pungent and warm

CHANNELS ENTERED
Spleen, Stomach and Lung

ACTIONS
1. Resolves toxins
2. Kills worms
3. Disperses swelling

50 4. Relieves dysentery

INDICATIONS
1. Carbuncle , furuncle, scabies, tinea
2. Pulmonary tuberculosis, whooping
cough
3. Diarrhea, dysentery
4. Ancyclostomiasis, enterobiasis,
trichomoniasis vaginalis
5. To prevent hyperlipemia

DOSAGE AND ADMINISTRATION

appropriate amount for external use ;
3-5 pieces for internal use ; eat fresh
da suan or boil it inside a decoction

242
 riginally, people only used da suan as a sea-
soning. How did they know that da suan was
also a medicinal?
Once there was a doctor who was good at making a
diagnosis by feeling the pulse. He had a helper who
prepared the herbs and did some day-to-day chores.
When the doctor was free, he would teach him how 243
to use herbs to cure diseases.
The doctor's neighbor was a farmer. Obsessed with
medicinal herbs, the farmer asked the doctor: "Doc,
take me on as your student, okay?"
At that time, practicing medicine was a business
that was only handed down within a family. Usually
the doctor would never teach any medical knowl-
edge to outsiders, other than his or her own family
members. So the doctor certainly rejected the farmer.
However, the farmer did not give up. He knew that
the doctor was teaching his helper at night. One night
the farmer stood outside the window of the doctor's
 house to listen to the lecture.
In fact, on this night the doctor did not talk about
herbs, but instead about a medical bill that one
patient owed.
"If the payment was delayed for a long time,
should we add interest to the principal?" the helper
asked.
"That's not necessary, hold back the interest. We
only need the payment for the herbs."
The farmer could not hear every word clearly from
244 outside. He misunderstood the sentence 'not neces-
sary, hold back the interest' to be 'da suan can cure
diarrhea'. He thought he had accidentally learnt a se-
cret prescription.
The next day, the farmer told everyone he met: "I
can cure diarrhea." Of course nobody trusted him.
However, he had a relative who got diarrhea. The
farmer did not want to miss this chance, so he went
to his relative's house and used da suan to treat the ill
man. Surprisingly, a few days later the man's disease
was cured.
The farmer then set up a clinic at his relative's
house to cure diarrhea. More and more patients came
with diarrhea, and left with da suan. Happily, a few
days later all those patients had totally recovered.
Soon, everyone knew the farmer could cure diarrhea.
When the doctor heard this, he went to see the
farmer, and asked: "From whom did you learn that da
suan can cure diarrhea?"
"From you!"
"What? When did I teach you that?"
"One night..." the farmer then told the doctor how
he stood outside the window and heard their conver-
sation.
The doctor laughed loudly: "But that night, we
were talking about medical bills!"
The farmer was shocked: "If that is so then why
does da suan work so well for diarrhea?"
"I must admit you really have somehow gotten
some knowledge of medicine. So you may become my
student."
Thereafter, da suan has become a member of the
herb family.
B[E[tJ
EJEJElEJLl[iJ[iJ[£][£]~lm
~~
 Index by Pinyin
BaiHe (13i'i) 210 Nil1Xi (41lf) 152

Bai Qian (allij) 156 Nil ZhenZi (:9: JD: '1-) 220

Bai T6u Weng (tEM);!) 74 PI1 Gong Ying (l1ll0"€) 60

Bai Wei (all) 84 Ren Shen (A~) 180

Bf~i Mii (lJ!it]:) 166 San Qi (~{;) 134

CangZhU (11:*) 110 Sang li Sheng (~*'t) 106

ChaiHI1 (~il!l) 24 Sang Ye (~~I) 18

Chang Shan (1i!'ilJ) 228 Shan Yao (1110) 184

Che QianZi (!fM)) 114 Shan Zha (ilJ1fi) 130

246 DaHuang (:*:91:) 90 She Chuang Zi (iJrfo*'f) 236

Da Suan (:*:1f;f;) 242 Til Si ZI (1iGG'f ) 198

DangGui ('43V=l) 202 Wei Ling Xian (Jl&~fllJ) 96

Gan Cao (ttljl:) 188 WuFengShe (i'J JA\iJrfo) 102

Ge Gen (~m) 30 WI1ZhU YI1 ('l.1:*~) 126

Gua L6u (JIl~) 160 Xia Ku Cao (][t;liljl:) 46

Huang ling (~1t) 214 Xian He Cao ( ftlJt'jljl:) 140

Huang Lian (Jtjf) 52 Xin Yi ($1<l) 14

lin Qian Cao (~f~ljl:) 122 Xu Duan (l#r:l'Ji) 192

lin YinHua (~f~11:::) 56 Yi Mii cao (ihlf,):ljl:) 144

lin Ying Zi (~tJlIj) 224 Yin Chen Hao (~,*Ii) 118

Li LI1 (~p) 232 ZhiMu (9;jJi1J:) 34

LI1 Gen (pm) 42 Zhu Sha (?KifJ) 176

MaB6 (l:1,of!J) 70 Zi Hua Vi Ding (~11::::IillT) 64

Ma Chi Xian (l:1,i!l1Xi:) 78 Zi Su Ye (~j)j;~t) 8

MaHuang (JffJt ) 4 Zui Xian Tao (/l'ffllJ tJt) 172

 Index by Pharmaceutical Name

Bulbus Alli Sativi 242 Radix Achyranthis Bidentatae 152

Bulbus Fritillaria 166 Radix Anemarrhenae 34

Bulbus Lilii 210 Radix Angelicae Sinensis 202

Cinnabaris 176 Radix Bupleuri 24

Flos Datura Metel 172 Radix Dichroae 228

Flos Lonicerae japonicae 56 Radix Dioscoreae 184

Flos Magnoliae 14 Radix Dipsaci 192

Folium Mori 18 Radix et Rhizoma Clematidis 96

Folium Perillae Radix et Rhizoma Cynanchi Atra ti 84

Fructus Cnidii 236 Radix et Rhizoma Ginseng 180

Fructus Crataegi 130 Radix et Rhizoma Glycyrrhizae 188

Fructus Evodiae 126 Radix et Rhizoma Notoginseng 134

Fructus Ligustri Lucidi 220 Radix et Rhizoma Rhei 90

Fructus Rosae Laevigatae 224 Radix Puerariae Lobatae 30

Fructus Trichosanthis 160 Radix Pulsatillae 74

Herba Agrimoniae 140 Rhizoma Atractylodis 110

Herba Artemisiae Scopariae lIS Rhizoma Coptidis 52

Herba Ephedrae 4 Rhizoma et Radix Cynanchi Stauntonii 156

Herba Leonuri 144 Rhizoma Polygonati 214

Herba Lysimachiae 122 Rhizome Phragmitis 42

Herba Portulacae 78 Semen Cuscutae 198

Herba Tarxaci 60 Semen Plantaginis 114

Herba Taxilli 106 Spica Prunellae 46

Herba Violae 64 Veratrum Nigrum 232

Lasiosphaera seu Calvatia 70 Zaocys 102

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7f *: 889 X 1194 1/32
#.& IX: 2006 if 9 }j ~ 1!t& 2006 if 9 Ji ~ 1 !t&~ 1 {'li:fp,\jlIJ
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 ISBN 7-117-07951-7

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