Learn About Chinese Herbs -Gui Zhi (Ramulus Cinnamomi)-
Gui Zhi （Ramulus Cinnamomi）
This product is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Source: Dried shoots of Cinnamomum cassia Presl, an evergreen tree in the Lauraceae family. Mostly cultivated products.
Origin: Main products in Guangxi, Guangdong.
Character identification: this product is fine cylindrical, the outer skin is purple reddish brown, fine dot-like skin holes can be seen, brittle and easy to break, reddish yellow cross-section, coarse branch cross-section yellow-white. It has a fragrant taste, sweet and spicy, and the outer skin is strong. It is best to have delicate branches and red-brown color without dead branches.
Main ingredients: containing volatile oil, which mainly contains cinnamon aldehyde, cinnamon acetate, etc. without linalool.
Pharmacological action:
(1) Antipyretic: cinnamon can deheat the skin, can expand the blood vessels of the skin, adjust blood circulation, make blood flow to the body surface, conducive to heat dissipation and sweating, this effect is the so-called warm meridian circulation, heat permeability. However, the antipyretic and sweating effect of Gui Zhi is very moderate, so the experience of traditional Chinese medicine believes that Gui Zhi needs to be equipped with other antidotes to sweat, and with astringent drugs can stop sweating.
(2) Analgesia: acts on the sensory center of the brain, raises the pain threshold and retracts the analgesic effect. When treating headaches caused by spasm of blood vessels in the head, it can relieve headaches by vasodilation; It can also relieve spasm of smooth muscles of internal organs and relieve abdominal pain.
(3) Stomach strengthening: can promote saliva and gastric juice secretion, help digestion.
(4) Antibacterial: In vitro experimental Gui Zhi ethanol infusion has significant antibacterial effect on Staphylococcus aureus and typhoid bacillus.
(5) Antiviral bacteria: In vitro test Gui Zhi decoction has a strong inhibitory effect on influenza virus.
(6) Antifungal: In vitro tests have inhibitory effect on pathogenic fungi such as Xanthophyton xanthosis.
Preparation: sliced or chewed.
Taste: spicy and warm.
Attribution: into the heart, lungs, bladder.
Function: Assisting Yang and releasing exterior, warm meridians, warm water moisture.
Indications: wind chill cold, wind cold and wet paralysis, menstrual closure abdominal pain, phlegm drinking and water storage, suitable for cold and wind chill surface deficiency sweating.
Clinical application
(1) For the treatment of external wind cold, compared with Ma Huang, the sweating effect of Gui Zhi is more slow, often to add Ginger to match, and drink hot porridge after taking medicine to help it sweat, such as Gui Zhi Tang formula. It is especially suitable for patients with weak constitution and new colds. Because the Gui Zhi can flourish blood and belongs to warm drugs, so, in the wind temperature and other febrile infectious diseases, there is high fever, pulse flooding and sweat, should not use Gui Zhi, if used wrongly, even if only 0.6 ~ 0.9g, it will cause nosebleeds. As for patients who have so-called internal fires such as dry mouth and tongue, vomiting blood, hemoptysis, etc., it is not advisable to use Gui Zhi.
(2) It is used for the treatment of rheumatic paralysis, especially shoulder-arm limb pain (rheumatoid arthritis, neuralgia, etc.), and has the effect of temperature warming and analgesia. It is more suitable for paralysis caused by external wind and cold due to weak physique, and sometimes the use of Gui Zhi Tang Formula alone can be effective; If the wind chill is heavier, it is mostly used with Ma Huang, Fu Zi, etc., such as Gui Zhi Fu Zi Tang Formula.
(3) It is used to treat edema, phlegm (eg, large secretions in the respiratory tract in chronic bronchitis). Traditional experience believes that Gui Zhi can open yang channel and aid water (or qi and water), so it can treat the above edema, phlegm drinking. From the point of view of modern medicine, "yang" and "qi" are the meaning of representing function, and the water of yang or gasification is actually the function of promoting blood circulation, strengthening the effect of sweating and diuresis, thereby reducing the accumulation of local body fluids. Gui Zhi has this effect, but it is often necessary to cooperate with water aiding, moisturizing herbs, such as Fu Ling, Bai Zhu, etc., in order to receive obvious effects, such as Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang Formula.
In addition to the above three uses, Gui Zhi is widely used in gynecology and other miscellaneous diseases. For example, in combination with Dang Gui, Bai Shao, etc., it can activate blood circulation and treat cold menstrual irregularities, amenorrhea, etc. (note: it is contraindicated when menorrhagia is repeated); With Gan Cao, it can be used for palpitations; For diarrhea with abdominal pain (such as chronic colitis), the addition of Gui Zhi to the Zhi Xie Fang Ji Formula can relieve pain; In the south, when you feel damp and sleepy in summer and your limbs week, you can feel light and happy after bathing in the decoction water of the Gui Zhi. As for the treatment of miscellaneous diseases with Gui Zhi Tang Formula plus and minus, its use is much more extensive.
Dosage: commonly used amount 3~6g. For releasing external energy, as little as 2.4g to 4.5g, generally 6g, more common. In the treatment of rheumatic joint pain, sometimes larger doses, or even reused to 30~45g, but depending on the specific situation and according to clinical experience.
Examples of prescriptions
(1) Gui Zhi Tang Formula ("Typhoid Fever"): Gui Zhi 6g, Bai Shao 9g, Zhi Gan Cao 6g, Sheng Jiang 9g, Da Zao 4 pieces water decoction.
(2) Gui Zhi Fu Zi Tang Formula ("Outline of Golden Pickles"): Gui Zhi 9g, Bai Shao 9g, Fu Zi 9g, Zhi Gan Cao 6g, Da Zao 4 pieces, Sheng Jiang 9g, water decoction.
(3) Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang ("Typhoid Fever"): Gui Zhi 9g, Fu Ling 15g, Bai Zhu 12g, Zhi Gan Cao 6g, Water decoction.
Annotations:
Rou Gui Zi is born on the tip of the cinnamon branch, the unripe young fruit and calyx, the calyx is swollen and inverted conical, often with a short stalk, resembling "Gong Ding Xiang", so it is also known as Gui Ding Xiang. Brownish-black is rough with several irregular longitudinal grooves and a small round concave eye at the apex, revealing a portion of the unripe young fruit, yellowish brown or brown. Solid quality. Aromatic and spicy. Functional temperature cessation pain, mainly for cold stomach and abdominal pain.
Gui Bing is a young and tender laurel leaf with a short stalk, semi-cylindrical or flat-cylindrical, 1~2cm long and about 5mm thick. Brownish-black or brownish-red, firm in texture, the odor function is the same as that of cinnamon, only the oil content is more, and the smell of spice is better.
Case study: blastocystis hominis parasite
Patient: female, age 65
Date of first appointment: Nov. 7th, 2012
Chief complaints: Abdominal pain and diarrhea for 4 weeks, defecation five times a day. Patient was diagnosed with "Human Blastocystis chronic enteritis" by fecal examination.
TCM diagnosis: pulse wiry, tongue pale, coating thin and white.
TCM treatment principle: clear dampness and kill the parasites
TCM prescription: Jin Jie 10g, Chai Hu 10g, Cang Er Zi 6g, Gui Zhi 15g, Shi Jun Zi 6g, Qian Jin Ba 15g, Fu Ling 10g, Ren Dong Teng 15g, Chuan Lian Zi 6g. To make decoction. One dose per day for 10 days.
First follow-up date: Nov. 13, 2013. Abdominal pain and diarrhea disappeared after 10 days. Fecal examination result is normal.