We have learned about two important natural properties of Chinese herbs One is growing environment the other is climate change Next, I'd like to introduce the relation between Chinese herbs and their origin Let's start with an important herb that is ephedra Ma Huang (Herba Ephedra) in Chinese medicine Ma Huang has two famous titles What are they? One is the first option of inducing sweating and releasing the exterior It tells us it has strong effect in inducing sweating and effective for common cold due to wind-cold So it is considered to be the first option of inducing sweating and releasing the exterior The other title is even more noble What is that It is called the most effective medicine for asthma patients To put it another way, most effective indicates the effect of relieving asthma is incomparable No wonder it is titled as "most effective" You may ask how did the ancients know How did they know Ma Huang are most effective for inducing sweating and releasing the exterior and relieving asthma Of course, now we are sure about this Apparently, it was based on our ancients' observation on the origin of Ma Huang and its environmental features along with the growing circumstance plant morphology and medicinal parts and so on We know the origin of Ma Huang is mainly in northwest regions which is, generally speaking much colder than other inland regions Especially in autumn and winter the region can be a world of ice and snow The ancients found it peculiar that snow drifts were found around the planted Ma Huang Accumulated snow was found However, area surrounding Ma Huang there was no snow. Although the snow was accumulated around there was nothing near the planted Ma Huang How come From this, Ma Huang was considered to be warm and hot in nature The problem was it was not just warm and hot in nature If it was only warm and hot, there would still have been snow near it But why there wasn't Because it could also disperse the warm and heat to its surrounding places It is full of yang (heat) qi and can disperse the warm heat to its surrounding area If the snow met with heat for sure it couldn't be accumulated but melt down So Li Shizhen summarized the property of Ma Huang into two words purging yang which meant it could purge the internal yang and disperse it so that the snow failed to accumulate From this, we can say this herb must be pungent and warm and must also be dispersing producing the strength to prevent the snow from accumulating So the strength of dispersing was quite strong Inducing sweating and releasing the exterior is the first aspect The origin of an herb makes the second aspect The medicinal parts of a herb is also related to its functional characteristics In terms of medicinal parts which is the stem the stem of Ma Huang. Generally stems are solid and full And the function of stems is to deliver nutrients It serves as a pipeline and a conveyor How is it differed from other stems It is hollow not only hollow, but straight upward which indicates its medicinal nature is straight upward To what extent does it go upward Till the surface and upper part which are related to the lung Lung is called metaphorically the canopy of zang organs From this we know that Ma Huang not only induces sweating, which is outward but also disperses lung qi, which is upward Moreover the entire stem is straight up and down It goes upward to induce sweating and goes downward to induce diuresis And also, it can descend and disperse lung qi We can imagine how important it is in treating cough and asthma due to failure of lung qi in dispersion by dispersing lung qi Cough and asthma due to failure of lung qi to descend can be treated by down regulating lung qi All these actions are closely related to the medicinal parts and the morphology This is one aspect Now we all know that this herb, as I said, is pungent and warm and can disperse yang At the same time, it is a little bitter in flavor Bitter descends and purges. Its major functions are firstly, related to the lung, which is upward and outward and secondly, related to the urinary bladder, which is inducing diuresis So the function of Ma Huang is simply summarized as two words, regulating the lung manifested by two points dispersing and descending By dispersing lung qi it can induce sweating and release the exterior Undoubtedly, it can be used to treat wind-cold exterior excessive syndrome which is characterized by absence of sweating but with strong effect in inducing sweating Only by inducing perspiration can wind and cold be eliminated and exterior syndrome be cured The second aspect is that since it is pungent in flavor it can disperse lung qi and relieve asthma which was mentioned before The second effect in regulating the lung is descending lung qi which relates to its bitter flavor Since bitter is descending and purging it can be used to down regulate lung qi, stop coughing and relieve asthma It is used in cough and asthma due to failure of lung qi to descend So as you can imagine it can disperse lung qi and also down regulate lung qi to relieve asthma Therefore, it is titled the most effective drug for asthma indicating its strong power and extensiveness in relieving asthma The second use in descending lung qi is inducing diuresis and resolving edema It can be used to treat edema Edema here, as I said refers to acute edema In Chinese medicine, it's called wind water edema It doesn't include all types of edema As a result, we can draw a conclusion from the example of Ma Huang which is known to be the best choice for inducing sweating and releasing the exterior and most effective in relieving asthma The factors are firstly, its origin secondly, its medicinal parts thirdly, its morphology We can come to a conclusion that the functions of Ma Huang and the natural environment and its own growth rhythm are closely related That's all for Ma Huang Next, there's one more question here What is the question You'll probably think if Ma Huang purges yang if so, wouldn't it die itself By purging and purging wouldn't yang be exhausted ultimately and die It is true It is the creation of the nature that you have to admire What we use is the stem of Ma Huang However besides stem, it also has internodes and roots Ma Huang induces sweating but its stem and root stop sweating So Ma Huang is not purging yang limitlessly To a certain extent it will be brought to a stop by things like its internodes and roots As a result, it is maintained a dynamic balance Sometimes we have to admire the subtlety and delicacy of how ancients understand the nature and as well as the magic of the nature The morphology of Ma Huang is so magical that it Is both a best option to induce sweating and also one to stop sweating Due to the biphasic effect the dynamic equilibrium can be maintained and it can normally grow and survive So that's all about Ma Huang Next, the other herb with the north-west features is Gan Cao (Rhizoma Glycyrrhiza ) Actually we have talked about Gan Cao previously when we learned about sweet flavor But I'm still going to mention it for the reason of the high frequency of its application Down through the ages, in Chinese medical prescriptions its frequency of application in different syndromes has reached up to 50% It has a nickname Guolao (meaning senior in the nation) for the reason of its wide use Why? Because this herb has a feature of Biphasic effect To put it another way duality of yin and yang Why does it have the biphasic effect This is related to its flavor What is the flavor We know from its name Gan is sweet The sweet can be described as extreme and pure sweet The sweet flavor is heavy, and is the only flavor making its duality of both yin and yang Because of the duality it is widely used in clinical practice How come the duality It must be associated with its growth environment We can say it is mainly grown in northwest regions especially Ningxia and Gansu and also in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia In those regions as we can imagine it is extremely dry and has little rain all year around with dramatic daily temperature swings and sufficient daylight You can imagine such a growing environment brings up high-sweet species For the same type of fruit are more sweet than those grown in other inland regions For example, grapes, watermelons and Hami melons they are all very sweet The growth of Gan Cao has another feature Although it grows in dry regions there is water near it So duality of yin and yang is the feature of Gan Cao This is related to its growing environment Now I'd like to talk about the functions of Gan Cao As for functions of Gan Cao I actually have mentioned when I explained the sweet flavor Let's take a quick look again The first function is tonifying Tonify what? Qi. It can be used to treat qi deficiency including heart qi deficiency, lung qi deficiency, spleen qi deficiency Secondly, it's effective in treating cough Any type of cough with profuse phlegm can be treated with Gan Cao At present, manly medicine that are used for cough contain Gan Cao such as brown mixture It is effective. Another function is removing toxins which is the major reason for its nickname, Guolao Gan Cao has been claimed to remove a hundred toxins such as medicinal toxin, food toxin and heat toxin It detoxifies them effectively Thirdly, it relieves acute symptoms As is mentioned in sweet flavor it is first for pain relief treating spasmodic pain and secondly for tranquilization treating restlessness and lastly, coordination as I said which is the most important reason for its wide use It coordinates and harmonizes the nature and efficacy of other herbs We use Gan Cao in many ways That's why the healing wisdom of Chinese herbs first lies in the natural attributes That almost concludes this session In fact, there's more about it Please remember the growth in natural environment necessarily endows herbs with specific characteristics and their functions So it isn't that the ancients lack experiments In fact, they made experiments in the natural world as their laboratory and directly on human body as the experimental subjects Their results have been proved correct for thousands of years So we really need to pay attentiion to this The second point of healing wisdom of Chinese herbs lies in the application wisdom This part actually involves some fundamental theories of Chinese medicine It Will be discussed in the last session when we talk about the safety of Chinese herbs later But you need to understand healing wisdom, apart from the conclusion of the understanding of things and observation of the nature is also concerned with specific application wisdom which includes preparation and processing of herbs compatibility, usage and dosage so on and so forth This part will be discussed in the last session Today's session fell into six parts three of which were about the theory of medicinal property and the remaining three parts were about healing wisdom That's all for today
