https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/A4PeQB2Vq1CW8xtc-5KQOA
Welcome everyone to share your experiences with the medicine in the replies, to facilitate other students in searching and learning
87. Cremastra (Shan Ci Gu)
Very little dissolves in water or by boiling, similar to Bletilla, best taken as a powder mixed with water.
The texture is sticky, with a slight numbness (this time it’s really very slight, not as obvious as in Fritillaria).
Confirmed effects: anti-inflammatory and reparative. Clearing heat and detoxification, reducing swelling and dispersing nodules are derived effects.
Some believe Cremastra has anti-cancer properties, but the anti-cancer one is the Colchicum (Lao Ya Ban Ci Gu, Guang Ci Gu), whose anti-cancer component is colchicine, which tastes much more pungent and is more toxic.
20. Cicada Molt (Chan Ti)
The water brewed has a tea fragrance. Chewing the chitin shell directly, the taste and effects are somewhat similar to powdered rhinoceros horn, and it can serve as a low-level substitute for rhinoceros horn (rhinoceros horn is something people store at home, protecting wild animals is everyone’s responsibility, I do not have it, don’t say otherwise).
Because it’s hard to clean, chewing directly has a lot of sand and soil; the chitin shell is also indigestible, so just chew a little, then spit and rinse, don’t force it too much.
Confirmed effects: clears heat and cools blood (actually a type of anti-inflammation, but traditional Chinese medicine’s anti-inflammatory effects can sometimes be quite mysterious; powdered rhinoceros horn starts working as soon as it’s in the mouth, seemingly without absorption into the blood or an increase in blood medication concentration). Disperses wind-heat, clears and benefits the throat, vents rashes and heals sores, clears liver and improves eyesight are derived effects.
295. Leech (Shui Zhi)
Leech water smells fishy, and chewing it also tastes fishy. Even for me, some mental preparation is needed to ingest it. But the middle section is actually not bad, similar to the taste of the soil bamboo worm in Fujian (Kekou Ge Nhang Xing Chong), with a chewy and fresh texture; the head and tail sections are less tasty.
Confirmed effects: promotes blood circulation and breaks blood stasis. Effective from brain level down to the spermatic vein and lower limb veins, capable of breaking stasis and blockages. Dosage starts at 15 grams, 30 grams is more potent.
Lowering blood lipids, stabilizing and partially reducing atherosclerotic plaques, improving heart blood supply, treating acute and chronic stroke, accelerating repair of traumatic hematoma are all derived effects.
Although it promotes blood circulation, using it to treat amenorrhea is somewhat mistaken; true blood stasis-caused amenorrhea patients are less than 10%, most are due to cold and deficiency.
368. Borneol (Bing Pian)
Taste a little by hand, then prepare a borneol solution by dissolving 1g of borneol in 150ml water (I used 3g for more stimulation).
The chemical name for borneol is 2-camphanol, molecular formula C10H18O, with three optical isomers: dextrorotatory, levorotatory, and racemic. According to its source, it is divided into levorotatory borneol (Ai Pian, extracted from Artemisia annua), dextrorotatory borneol (natural borneol/Mei Pian, extracted from Dryobalanops camphor), and synthetic borneol (produced via α-pinene from turpentine or camphor with dehydrated oxalic acid).
Due to its irritancy, it stimulates a suppressed nervous system (coma); simultaneously, it has anesthetic effects, useful for reducing fever and pain, lowering nervous system excitability, protecting the heart and brain; it also has bactericidal properties.
It seems like a very useful medicine, but its effectiveness for angina pectoris, sore throat, and trauma swelling largely comes from nerve paralysis, at the cost of disrupting the signal system maintaining internal environmental balance (increasing cold and dampness in the meridians).
Therefore, it is recommended for external use only and internal use only in emergency treatment — however, each of its effects has better alternatives, so its position is quite awkward, and I basically do not use it.