The king of medicine can nourish the spleen, heart, lungs and detoxify

When I was a child, I always had tonsillitis and caught a cold, fever and cough almost every month. Every time I have a fever, my family gives me Analgin; every time I have a cough, licorice tablets are the first choice.

Although drugs were abused in that era, licorice tablets are indeed cheap and effective. I take it every time I have a cough. Although it tastes a bit sweet and bitter, I usually feel significantly better on the same day after taking the medicine. If the cough is not serious, I usually sleep for a night after taking it and I will feel better the next day.

Modern medicines are updated too quickly. For example, cephalosporin antibiotics, from the first-generation cephalosporins Pioneer I-VIII that I took when I was a child to the current fifth-generation cephalosporins, there are probably hundreds of them.

To be honest, as a medical student, I can't remember all the hundreds of cephalosporin drugs. I can only remember a dozen or so that are commonly used in clinical practice. Moreover, dozens of first-generation cephalosporins are hardly used nowadays. Most people start with the second generation.

However, licorice tablets have been with me since I was a child. Last month, my child had a dry cough, and I still gave him licorice tablets, which had a very good cough-relieving effect.

Licorice tablets contain trace amounts of other ingredients, such as opium powder, camphor, star anise oil, etc., but its main and most important ingredient is still the fluid extract of the traditional Chinese medicine licorice.

I believe that everyone who has taken Chinese medicine knows this medicine, because licorice can be seen in most Chinese medicine prescriptions. Some people say that it is a harmonizing medicine.

But licorice is by no means just an optional blending medicine. Licorice is added to prescriptions for the purpose of detoxification, tonifying Qi, regulating heart Qi, harmonizing medicinal properties, and preventing the medicine from being too bitter, hence the saying “nine out of ten prescriptions contain licorice”.

In addition to benefiting the lungs and relieving coughs, licorice also has a good effect in replenishing qi. The commonly mentioned qi-tonifying medicines are mostly for replenishing the middle and benefiting qi, that is, most of them are for replenishing the spleen. But licorice not only nourishes the middle, it can also nourish the heart qi and treat palpitations and irregular pulse.

During my junior year, the school arranged for me to do an internship in a hospital for three months. However, my husband (who was a classmate at the time) was doing clinical internship and volleyball training, so he was overworked and developed ventricular triplet.

At that time, I went to the affiliated hospital and asked the director of the cardiology department to see me. She did not prescribe any western medicine, but just used a prescription of Zhigancao Decoction with modifications.

To be honest, my husband and I are a little unsure about this medicine. Can heart problems be solved with Chinese medicine?

On the 4th day after taking the medicine, my husband's frequent ventricular triples completely disappeared, and then he continued to take this prescription for a week. Since then, it has been nearly twenty years, and my husband has never had heart palpitations again.

Now let me introduce the famous Licorice Soup to you:

It is a famous prescription in the ancient classic "Treatise on Febrile Diseases" for treating palpitations and irregular pulse, and is also known as Fumai Decoction. It is a tonic that has the functions of replenishing Qi and Yin, promoting Yang and restoring the pulse.

composition:

Roasted licorice root, ginger, cinnamon twig, codonopsis pilosula, raw rehmannia root, donkey-hide gelatin, ophiopogon japonicus, hemp seed, and jujube.

There is also an ancient story about licorice:

In the Ming Dynasty, there was an imperial physician named Sheng Yin. Soon after he entered the imperial pharmacy one morning, he felt a headache and dizziness, and then fainted. The doctors around were stunned and at a loss as to what to do.

A doctor volunteered to treat Sheng Yin and boiled a concentrated dose of Chinese medicinal licorice before feeding it to him. Soon, Sheng Yin woke up.

The other imperial doctors were very surprised, and this doctor explained that the imperial pharmacy was filled with moisture all day long, and all kinds of medicinal fumes were everywhere. Although there was nothing unusual at other times, Imperial Physician Sheng did not eat breakfast that day, and his vital energy was deficient, so the overflowing medicinal energy took advantage of the opportunity to enter his body, causing Imperial Physician Sheng to be poisoned by the medicines and faint. Licorice can not only harmonize the properties of various medicines, but also detoxify hundreds of medicines. So after he was given licorice water, he woke up quickly.

Tao Hongjing once called licorice the king of all medicines. It can nourish the middle and replenish qi, clear away heat and detoxify, eliminate phlegm and relieve cough, relieve urgency and relieve pain. It has many functions. Its main uses are as follows:

1. It is used for palpitations and irregular pulse caused by insufficient heart qi, and fatigue, poor appetite and loose stools caused by weak spleen qi.

2. Used for cough caused by insufficient lung qi

3. Used for acute pain in the abdomen and limbs

4. Used in prescriptions with strong medicinal properties

5. Used for heat toxic sores, sore throat, drug and food poisoning, etc.

However, modern research has also found that some therapeutic ingredients in licorice have effects similar to glucocorticoids, so when consuming licorice, you must avoid long-term or large-scale use.