Gan Jiang乾薑
Rhizoma ZingiberisDried ginger rhizome
Also known asPao Jiang
- Category
- Herbs that warm the Interior
- Channels entered
- Spleen, Stomach, Heart, Lung
- Dosage
- 3–9 g
Actions & indications
- Warms the middle and disperses cold
- A cold, dull ache in the epigastrium that eases with warmth, vomiting of clear fluid, watery diarrhoea, no thirst.
- Restores devastated yang
- Cold limbs and a faint pulse — used with Fu Zi, whose action it both supports and tempers.
- Warms the lungs and transforms thin mucus
- Cough with copious clear watery sputum and a cold sensation in the chest.
Contraindications
Contraindicated in yin deficiency with heat and in bleeding driven by heat. Used cautiously in pregnancy.
Preparation
Blast-frying (Pao Jiang) makes it less dispersing and more astringent — the form reached for when cold-deficiency bleeding is the problem.