Chinese herb of the week: The qualities and uses of Ma Huang
I hope you’ll excuse me for getting this out a little later than I had hoped - the weekend was jam packed!
Ma Huang - Ephedra - 麻黄
Ma Huang is one of the most famous herbs in the Chinese Materia Medica - and with good reason. In a world where medicine is mostly unable to deal with the most common illnesses that people encounter, colds and flus, an herb that can handily address these symptoms has a right to be respected. Unfortunately, some of the popularity of this herb exists for more nefarious reasons. Ephedra has been implicated in a number of exertion related deaths, particularly in young football players and people seeking to lose weight.
Unfortunately, many people are unable or unwilling to learn the whole story. These deaths did not come from the controlled use of appropriate doses of the whole herb under the supervision of an appropriately trained Chinese medicine physician. In many cases, the herb is broken down to isolate the desired alkaloids (for example, L-ephedrine) and often mixed with other stimulating compounds to increase the metabolism of the imbiber. It is not used using the principles of formula science - and thus is dangerous. When Ma Huang is used in its natural or minimally prepared form, prescribed by a physician within a carefully constructed formula appropriate to the patient’s condition and constitution - it is absolutely safe and, even, quite beneficial.
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Tags: Character, chinese-herb, chinese-herbs, etymology, law, ma-huang, medical-safety, release-the-exterior, safety, shennong-ben-cao-jingRelated posts
Chinese herb of the week - Qualities and uses of Mu Zei
The herb this week is an oddity. It isn’t found in many formulas, and I have never seen it used in the school clinic medicinary. Why review it? I did a paper on it last year because it’s something I see around me frequently here in Oregon and I always wondered whether it was medicinal. I thought I would share my findings and add to them - I’d love to hear from anyone who has used this herb in their practice or taken it as a patient. What experience did you have of this odd plant?
The plant
Mù Zéi is a member of the family Equisetaceae, which is a very primitive plant form that was once quite dominant and even reached tree height about 200 million years ago. There are eight surviving members of the family, and none of them reach such great heights today. As a testament to their primitiveness, it is worth noting that Mù Zéi propagates primarily via spores. This fact often finds the family grouped with ferns, though they share few similarities other than their method of propagation.
The fact that there are eight members of this family, and all of them are referred to commonly with a huge number of seemingly interchangeable names made my research a little more difficult. I studied several books but could not find a true consensus concerning which species is the “true” Mù Zéi, and indeed, whether there were medicinal differences between the species. Read more
Tags: Character, chinese-herb, chinese-herbs, release-the-exteriorRelated posts
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