Was tonficiation; now securing & astringing

[Guest guest]

Re the following quote from Dr. Jiao submitted by Bob Felt:

 

" This lecture introduces more than simply medicinals that

supplement qi, supplement the blood, supplement yin, and supplement

yang. To overcome the limits of individual categories, spirit-quieting

and securing and astringing medicinals, which are similiar to

supplementing medicinals in that they are of benefit to right

qi, have also been included in this lecture. "

 

For some time I have thought that the Chinese category of securing and

astringing medicinals (gu se yao) was made up of at least two

different subcategories of medicinals which achieve their securing and

astringing effects in radically different CM ways.

 

On the one hand, you have the securing and astringing medicinals which

achieve their effect by supplementing the kidney qi vis a vis those

viscus's function of securing. Here I am talking about Fructus

Schisandrae Chinensis (Wu Wei Zi), Fructus Corni Officinalis (Shan Zhu

Yu), and Semen Euryalis Ferocis (Qian Shi) to mention the one's I feel

quite confident in ascribing supplementing functions to. (Conversely,

I would also ascribe this kind of securing and astringing function to

at least two yang supplements: Semen Astragali Complanati (Sha Yuan

Zi) and Fructus Alpiniae Oxyphyllae (Yi Zhi Ren).) All these

medicinals supplement and fortify especially the kidneys' function of

sealing and closing the two yin (anus & urethra/vaginal meatus). Then

there are the astringing and securing meds which supplement the heart

and lung qi, such as Fructus Tritici Aestivi (Xiao Mai) and Fructus

Schisandrae Chinensis (Wu Wei Zi) again. As a way of differentiating

these kinds of securing and astringing medicinals from those I will

talk about below, I would say these medicinals are securing (gu, as

opposed to astringing, se).

 

On the other hand, you have securing and astringing medicinals which

seem to work by astringing (se, but I would not say securing). In this

subcategory, I would include meds such as Pericarpium Papaveris

Somniferi (Ying Su Ke), Pericarpium Punicae Granati (Shi Liu Pi),

Limonitum (Yu Liang Shi), Cortex Ailanthi Altissimae (Chun Gen Pi),

and Os Sepiae Seu Sepiellae (Hai Piao Xiao) as well as Os Draconis

(Long Gu) and Concha Ostreae (Mu Li) from the heavily settling,

spirit-quieting category. I do not think these meds have any

supplementing function but rather achieve their effect by astringing

the same way your mouth puckers if you try to eat a banana peel. At

the moment, I'm not sure what the right words should be to describe in

a CM way this type of astringing other than simply saying they are

astringing (but not securing).

 

As for the other members of the securing and astrining category, I'm

not quite sure how to subcategorize them. Either I'm of different

minds, or I just don't use them enough in my practice to have an

opinion about them. Here I'm talking about Fructus Rosae Laevigatae

(Jin Ying Zi), Fructus Terminaliae Chebulae (He Zi), Semen Ginkgonis

Bilobae (Bai Guo), etc.

 

I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's opinions about any of these

meds or about subdividing the entire category into two (or more)

subcategories. So far, I have not come across any real clarification

of this in the Chinese ben cao literature, but I feel fairly certain

that there's more to be said about this category of meds than what is

typically said. The above are purely my own preliminary musings on

these things. It's something I have been mulling over ever since we

discussed pain and the CM descriptions of various anodyne and sedative

Western meds.

 

Bob