Now that we have understood the relationship between the cold/heat nature of diseases and the four basic properties of Chinese herbs next, I'd like to explain various flavors of medicinals and the relationship between flavors and functions These are what we're going to learn in this session Here I'd like to tell you about a phrase describing the flavors of Chinese herbs: five flavors Five flavors are related to medicinal effects First, what are the five flavors Likewise, five is a number It refers to pungent, sweet，sourness，bitter and salty five different tastes of medicinals In fact, tastes of medicinals are more than five For example, we also have a bland flavor and an astringent flavor Then why do we call "five flavors"? There are two reasons One is the influence of the five-element theory Each element (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) corresponds to a flavor on the other hand although there are other flavors pungent, sweet，sour，bitter and salty are most common and important So it's called five flavors But what about bland flavor and astringent flavor Our ancestors were quite smart since bland is closely associated with sweet in terms of their functions bland is attached to sweet since astringent is closely associated with sour in terms of their functions astringent is attached to sour As was mentioned previously, every herb has its unique flavor. But how is the flavor determined? Next I'll talk about the basis of determining medicinal flavors some of which may be subjective others objective Sometimes we judge the flavor by tasting it actually quite often Herbs with pure and noticeable flavor can be simply determined by tasting them For instance, Gan Cao (Radix Glycyrrhizae) is sweet with no doubt Sweet is its only flavor because you can tell it's sweet as soon as you taste it Another example is Huang Lian (Rhizoma Coptidis) We often say, "life is even bitterer than Huang Lian" You can imagine how bitter Huang Lian is Once you taste it, you know that Huang Lian is bitter and merely bitter Though the flavors of such herbs can be easily determined by tasting them the problem is that some herbs or most herbs have more than one flavor maybe two or three, sometimes even more What's more flavors of some herbs are not as simple as Gan Cao and Huang Lian probably indistinct In this case it's subjective and blindfolded to determine the flavor by tasting Therefore, the second basis of determining the flavor of a drug in a sense more importantly is the summarization of clinical experience which is actually a generalization of functions of herbs Comparatively speaking as I said, the latter is more important Why is that In some cases, if the two bases are contradictory the actions of herbs shall prevail Let's look at a simple example Ji Nei Jin (Endothelium Corneum Gigeriae galli) is often used to promote digestion It tastes bitter, but it acts to strengthen the spleen and stimulate the appetite Generally, herbs that strengthen the spleen and stimulate appetite are sweet So when we describe the flavor of Ji Nei Jin we use sweet instead of bitter That's why the generalization of functions is most important in the theory of five flavors Then what are their fuctions Now let's explain them one by one First, let's take a look at pungent Before we get to that, let's try to recall and imagine when you eat pungent and spicy food or something really hot what's your reaction I guess most people will sweat and have a red face Sweating indicates that pungent has the characeristic of ascending and dispersing and a red face indicates that it increases blood circulation So properties of pungent can be summarized as activating and dispersing Specifically, dispersing means spreading and diffusing It's mainly used for common cold We say it can disperse and release the exterior Exterior-releasing herbs are often pungent Such as ginger Mint, etc are all pungent On the other hand activating means to promote the circulation of qi and blood So herbs that circulate qi and move blood are often pungent For instance, Mu Xiang (Radix Aucklandiae) is used to circulate qi chuan Xiong (Radix Chuanxiong) is used to circulate blood they are both pungent After pungent, let's move on to sweet Maybe most people prefer sweet or love sweet flavor Why Apart from a better taste it benefits the body What kind of benefits From our perspective They have tonic property So herts that can tonify the body and herbs that are often used to treat a deficient syndrome are often sweet For example, Gan Cao (we mentioned before) can supplement qi Dang Gui (Radix Angelica sinensis) is also sweet Hong Zao (Red dates) tonifies blood and it's also sweet This is one point The second point sweet-flavor herbs can coordinate other herbs in treating different diseases It can coordinate and harmonize with many herbs It can be used in combination with cold-property herbs to soften the coldness It can also be used in combination with warm-property herbs to decrease the warmth and dryness It can even be used in combination with both cold- and warm-property herbs to balance cold and heat Gan Cao is well-known for its function in this aspect So this is the second point The third point is to alleviate acute symptoms This is relative to urgency What kind of acute symptoms We know spasmodic pain due to muscle tension The pain can be relieved by relaxing the muscle tension So we say alleviating acute symptoms to relieve pain Some people are fighty and impetuous some are too nervous to have good sleep we call it mental stress In that case we use sweet-flavor herbs to calm the mind and ease the mental stress So this is the second aspect: to alleviate acute symptoms and tranquilize the mind This is 'alleviating acute symptoms' Last but not least, sweet-flavor herbs can remove toxins For instance, Gan Cao has been claimed to remove a hundred toxins heat toxin, medicinal toxin, food toxin, etc In summary, sweet-flavor herbs can tonify, coordiate alelviate acute symptoms and remove toxins Now that we've finished sweet, quite naturally, we can think of an opposite flavor That is bitter If sweet-flavor herbs tonify the body then bitter-flavor herbs are just the opposite They are surely to reduce or purge So the first characteristic of bitter is purging To purge what First, it promotes bowel movements So herbs that are used to treat constipation like Da Huang ( Radix et Rhizoma Rhei) is bitter Second they clear fir and are often used to treat hyperactive fire-heat or toxic-heat For example, Zhi Zi (Fructus Gardenia) is also bitter Third, They descend In this sense, descending is related to adverse flow of qi Adverse up-flow problems result from failure to descend We need to down-regulate which is known as descending and purging For example, vomiting due to adverse ascending of stomach qi and cough and asthma due to adverse ascending of lung qi can be treated by bitter-flavor herbs to down-regualte qi, stop coughing and relieve asthma Such as Pi Pa Ye (Folium Eriobotryae) So bitter is opposite to sweet in both flavor and functions. Tonifying verus purging Moreover, Bitter-flavor herbs have another important property the propert of drying Dry is relative to dampness In Chinese medicine, dampness is a major pathogenic factor The most direct and effective approach to disorders due to dampness is to dry the dampness What kind of herbs are dry Bitter ones. Like Huang Lian. Huan Lian can resolve dampness what's more, the bitterer it is, the stronger effect it has on resolving dampness So Huang Lian is a typical example of heat-clearing and dampness-drying herb This is bitter Bitter-flavor herbs have the property of purging and drying Next let's move on to another flavor sour Please note that astringent is attached to sour its action can be summarized to astringing manifesting in two aspects First, astringing the loss of yin-fluid including loss of fluids For example, persistent sweating heavey menstruation nocturnal emissions, enuresis or severe diarrhea can do great harm to the body We have to stop the loss of yin-fluid What should we do We need to use sour-flavor herbs to astringe and prevent from loss of fluid Therefore, astringency is one of the major property of sour-flavor herbs The second function as you can imagine if you have a preserved plum in your mouth what will you feel You will be secreting saliva Once you salivate, you have fluid in your mouth and you won't feel thirsty This remind us of an ancient Chinese story of quench one's thirst by thinking of plums That is to say, sour-flavor herbs help produce saliva and slakes thirst So it is used to treat dry mouth Darm plum is an example Since astringent is attached to sour its basic effects are the same as sour in astringency But how do we distinguish them It has a stronger effect in astringency but has no effect in producing saliva and stopping the thirst So that's it for sour and astringent Next, we move on to salty Salty in general, accounts for only a small portion in Chinese herbs but it's quite special Its actions can be summarized as softening and purging Purging refers to promoting the bowel movements But what are the special features In fact, it is mixed with its softening function It softens hard stools Chronic intractable constipation can be very difficult to treat because the stools are too dry to be evacuated Salty-flavor herbs can soften dry, hard stools in order to defecate as a result, we say it can promote bowel movements In addition, soft is relative to hard Some hard masses mainly tangible ones such as nodules which are already hard masses with a fixed position If we want to get rid of them in Chinese medicine you cannot operate If you use herbs, you'll have to soften them first to cure So soften refers to soften hardness, dissipate masses and treat problems including masses, nodules, etc That's it for salty-flavor herbs The last flavor is bland Bland flavor means tasteless Its function is simply promoting diuresis and resolving dampness or draining dampness by increasing urine output and promoting liquid discharge it's mainly used to treat edema and dysuria For examle, Fu Ling (Poria) So I have introduced five flavors actually seven flavors, their main functions and characteristics. I'd like to highlight two points here first, every herb has its own flavor(s) from a single flavor, up to several ones even all five flavors Therefore, the less flavors it has to some extent, the less functions it has whereas the more flavors, the more complicated functions it has It has multiple functions Second as we have just learned the four basic properties we know that every herb has its own property cold, heat or neutral It should also have its flavor(s) It's important for us to udnerstand the property and flavor of herbs before understanding their functins In other words the properties and flavors of herbs constituted the basic elements and tendencies of its functions let's take Huang Lian for example Huang Lian is bitter in flavor Bitter can dry dampness It is cold in nature cold can clear heat Consequently, the basic function of Huang Lian is to clear heat, dry dampness reduce fire and remove toxins Another example is Mang Xiao (Mirabilite) In flavor, Mang Xiao is salty Salty soften and descend In nature, it is cold and clears heat So the basic functions of Mang Xiao is promoting bowel movements, clearing heat and relieving swelling So flavors and properties of herbs should be integrated for consideration Only in this way can we fully understand the functions of herbs That's all for this session
