Herbal Remedies Quiz: Astringent and Heat-Clearing Herbs

Exterior-Releasing Herbs (解表药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to dispel external pathogens and relieve external symptoms
• Properties: Primarily pungent, with some bitter and sweet flavors
• Meridians: Primarily enter the lung and bladder meridians
• Functions: Penetrating pores, inducing sweating, relieving external symptoms
• Types:
  • Dispel wind-cold
  • Dispel wind-heat
• Indications: Wind-cold exterior symptoms, rheumatic exterior symptoms, wind-heat exterior symptoms, initial stages of febrile diseases, edema, cough and asthma, measles, rheumatic arthralgia, sores and ulcers with exterior symptoms

Heat-Clearing Herbs (清热药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to clear internal heat
• Properties: Cold and cool nature
• Meridians: Primarily affect the five internal organs, stomach, and large intestine
• Types:
  • Heat-clearing and fire-removing
  • Heat-clearing and dampness-drying
  • Heat-clearing and blood-cooling
  • Heat-clearing and detoxifying
  • Deficiency-clearing heat
• Indications: Internal heat diseases, exogenous febrile diseases, high fever and thirst, damp-heat diarrhea, warm toxic rashes, edema and sores, yin deficiency and internal heat.

Laxative Herbs (泻下药)

• Definition: Herbs that induce diarrhea or lubricate the large intestine for defecation.
• Properties: Mostly bitter and cold, with some sweet and flat, pungent warm/hot
• Meridians: Primarily enter stomach and large intestine meridians
• Types: Attacking, moistening, and diuretic laxatives
• Functions: Purging, eliminating accumulation, relieving stagnation, moistening the intestines, and expelling fluid
• Indications: Constipation, gastrointestinal stagnation, food heat accumulation, edema, and fluid stagnation.

Digestive Herbs (消食药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily for digesting food and promoting digestion
• Properties: Mostly sweet and mild
• Meridians: Primarily enter spleen and stomach meridians
• Functions: Digest food stagnation, stimulate appetite, regulating the stomach
• Indications: Food stagnation (abdominal distension, acid regurgitation, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, abnormal bowel movements, indigestion from weak spleen and stomach).

Antiparasitic Herbs (驱虫药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to expel or kill parasites
• Properties: Sweet, bitter, spicy, with varying cold/warm properties, toxic.
• Meridians: Primarily enter spleen, stomach, and large intestine meridians
• Functions: Paralyze and kill parasites (primarily intestinal) to cause expulsion
• Indications: Intestinal parasitic diseases (ascariasis, pinworm disease, tapeworm disease, hookworm disease, ginger worm disease), abdominal pain around navel, loss of appetite, excessive eating, preference for foreign objects, weight loss, sallow complexion, large abdomen with visible blue veins, edema, malnutrition in children.

Qi-regulating Herbs (理气药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to regulate Qi, eliminate stagnation, and prevent reversal
• Properties: Primarily pungent and bitter; mostly warm, with few cold types
• Meridians: Primarily enter spleen, stomach, lung, and liver meridians
• Functions: Regulate Qi, strengthen spleen, soothe liver stagnation, regulate Qi and widen the chest, alleviate pain, break up Qi knots, relieve vomiting
• Indications: Lung Qi stagnation, chest fullness, cough and asthma; spleen and stomach Qi stagnation, abdominal distension, hiccups, vomiting; liver Qi stagnation, chest and flank pain, irregular menstruation.

Warming Herbs (温里药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to warm the interior and dispel cold
• Properties: Mostly pungent and sweet; warm nature
• Meridians: Primarily enter heart, kidney, spleen, and stomach meridians
• Functions: Warm the middle, dispel cold, restore Yang, alleviate adverse conditions, and warm meridians, relieving pain
• Indications: Internal cold symptoms (cold spleen and stomach/deficiency/coldness; cold pain in lower abdomen; cold hernia; headache; insufficient kidney yin, impotence, cold uterus, cold pain in waist and knees; palpitations, difficulty urinating, edema, Yang loss, adverse syndrome).

Diuretic and Dampness-Removing Herbs (利水渗湿药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily for clearing the water channels, draining away water and dampness
• Properties: Mostly sweet and light; cold nature
• Meridians: Primarily enter kidney, bladder, and small intestine meridians; also enter heart, lung, liver, gallbladder, and spleen meridians
• Functions: Drain away dampness, clear damp-heat, stop diarrhea, reduce swelling and jaundice
• Indications: Dampness diseases (edema, dysuria, phlegm, diarrhea, jaundice, damp-heat, wet sores, leucorrhea, dampness arthritis).

Anti-Rheumatic Herbs (祛风湿药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to dispel wind and dampness, relieving numbness and pain
• Properties: Mostly bitter and warm; a few cold types
• Meridians: Primarily enter liver, spleen, and kidney meridians
• Functions: Dispel wind and dampness, relax muscles and tendons, relieve numbness, and relieve pain
• Indications: Rheumatic arthritis; syndromes with tendon and bone pain, tendon and vein stiffness, difficulty in flexion and extension

Dampness-Removing Herbs (化湿药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily for removing dampness and promoting spleen function
• Properties: Pungent and warm
• Meridians: Primarily enter spleen and stomach meridians
• Functions: Awaken the spleen, remove dampness, dry dampness, strengthen the spleen
• Indications: Dampness obstruction in interior(abdominal distension, vomiting, acid reflux, loose stools, poor appetite, fatigue, dry mouth, excessive salivation, greasy tongue coating), spleen dampness, and abnormal transportation and transformation.

Hemostatic Herbs (止血药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily stopping internal and external bleeding.
• Properties: Mostly bitter, astringent, and cold; a few warm types
• Meridians: Primarily enter heart and liver meridians
• Functions: Cooling blood to stop bleeding, removing blood stasis to stop bleeding, astringing to stop bleeding, warming meridians to stop bleeding
• Indications: Internal and external bleeding (hemoptysis, coughing up blood, nosebleeds, vomiting blood, blood in stool, hematuria, metrorrhagia, purpura, and traumatic bleeding).

Blood-Activating and Stasis-Removing Herbs (活血化瘀药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily to promote blood circulation and eliminate blood stasis
• Properties: Mostly pungent and bitter; warm nature
• Meridians: Primarily enter liver and heart meridians
• Functions: Disperse and circulate blood, activate blood circulation and remove blood stasis, relieve pain, regulate menstruation, resolving symptoms, reducing swelling, and healing wounds.
• Indications: Blood stasis symptoms (internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, trauma), blood stasis in the chest and abdomen, head-body pain, hemiplegia, numbness in limbs, joint pain, bleeding with purple blood clots, injuries, swelling/pain from sores and ulcers, irregular menstruation, postpartum blood stasis

Expectorant and Cough Medicine (化痰止咳药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily used to remove or eliminate phlegm
• Properties: Primarily pungent, bitter, sweet, or salty; varying warm/cool properties.
• Meridians: Primarily enter spleen and lung meridians; sinking properties are common
• Functions: Warming/clearing cold phlegm, clearing/removing hot phlegm, stopping cough and asthma, removing wind/phlegm, dispersing cold/dampness, unblocking joints, clearing lung heat, calming the liver, regulating meridians, softening nodules, promoting lung function, descending Qi, moistening lungs.
• Indications: Phlegm and cough/asthma symptoms, cold phlegm cough and asthma, damp phlegm obstruction, wind-phlegm obstruction, yin sores, warm phlegm cough/asthma, epilepsy, convulsions, scrofula, goiter and various coughs/asthma from external infection/internal injuries.

Tranquilizer Herbs (安神药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily for calming the mind and treating mental disorders.
• Properties: Mostly minerals, shells, or plant seeds (heavy/sinking or moist/nourishing). Many are salty and/or bitter in taste, cold in nature, and sinking.
• Meridians: Primarily enter heart and liver meridians
• Functions: Calming the mind, sedative. Classified into heavy tranquilizers and nourishing tranquilizers.
• Indications: Restlessness, palpitations, insomnia, forgetfulness, dreaminess, convulsions, epilepsy, and mania.

Liver-Soothing and Wind-Extinguishing Herbs (平肝熄风药)

• Definition: Herbs primarily calming the liver, suppressing yang and eliminating wind and spasms
• Properties: Mostly animal/mineral (shells, insects); salty, bitter tastes, cold, sinking nature
• Meridians: Primarily enter the liver meridian.
• Functions: Calming the liver, suppressing yang, stopping wind/spasms
• Indications: Liver yang hyperactivity, liver wind internal movement. Often used in combination to calm the liver and quench yang.

Tonify Herbs (补虚药)

• Definition: Herb used to enhance the body's ability to fight off diseases.
• Properties: Mostly sweet in taste, with other flavors such as pungent, sour and salty, and varying cold/warm properties (e.g. some warming, some cooling).
• Meridians: Enter through five Zang-Fu Organs. Main emphasis on replenishing Qi, Blood, Yin and Yang.
• Function: Replenishing Qi, Blood, Yin and Yang. Includes categories for strengthening Qi, Yang, Blood, and Yin.
• Indications: Qi deficiency, blood deficiency, Yin deficiency, and Yang deficiency. Can also support the body during illness and when a person is weakened.

Astringent Herbs (收涩药)

• Definition: Herbs to reduce blood loss and treat conditions with excessive discharge.
• Properties: Sour and astringent taste, warm/flat nature, primarily through lung, spleen, kidneys and large intestine meridians.
• Functions: Strengthen exterior, stop sweating; stop coughing; stop diarrhea; consolidate urination; stop bleeding; stop leukorrhea
• Indications: Spontaneous sweating, night sweats, long-term cough and asthma, weak vital energy, diarrhea, dysentery,spermatorrhea, enuresis, frequent urination, excessive bleeding or discharge

Emetics Herbs (涌吐药)

• Definition: Herbs inducing vomiting
• Properties: Sour, bitter, cold, and often toxic.
• Functions: Induce vomiting, remove food stagnation, remove phlegm.
• Indications: Accidental ingestion of poisons, food stagnation, phlegm buildup.