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"Sweet and bland flavors leach and facilitate dampness, bitterness and cold clear and drain Lung heat from the Upper body while facilitating Bladder function in the lower body. The Lungs are the upper source of fluids: if the source is clear, the flow will also be clear. Thus, while Pyrrosiae Folium (shi wei) excels at facilitating the fluids and unblocking painful urinary dribbling, it also clears the Lungs and alleviates cough. In addition, it cools the blood and stops bleeding. Thus, it is most appropriate for hot painful urinary dribbling, stony painful urinary dribbling, and painful urinary dribbling with blood in the urine. It is often used for cough and wheezing due to Lung heat, or epistaxis, or irregular uterine bleeding due to blood heat. Reverence for the Origin of the Materia Medica observes that it 'helps the essential qi of the Lungs and Kidney, linking together the upper and lower parts of the body. Water essence rises to moisten, so the orifices of the upper body and the exterior orifices are each unblocked; Lung qi descends to transform, so the fluid pathways are mobilized and urination is facilitated. Zhang Shan-Lei, however, noted that, because Pyrrosiae Folium (shi wei) grows in the dark grottos of deep mountains, "it obtains pure yin qi, and its flavor is bitter; it is a cold, cooling thing, of this there can be no doubt." Zhang went on to say that its benefit to the five yin organs or the essential qi derives only from its ability to remove pathogenic influences: "essential qi, that is, yin qi, is actually true yin: if pathogenic heat is eliminated, true yin is naturally augmented." Bensky: Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica, 3rd ed. |
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