Skip to content
Neijing
pldeesfr

Knowledge baseHerbs

Hu Huang Lian胡黃連

Rhizoma PicrorhizaePicrorhiza Rhizome

Also known asFigwort Flower Rhizome

Category
Herbs that Clear Deficiency Heat
Nature
cold
Taste
bitter
Channels entered
Liver, Stomach, Large Intestine, Heart
Dosage
1.5–10 g

Usual doses

Dosage
1.5–10 g
Tincture
1–4 ml

Actions & indications

Clears Deficiency Heat
Yin Deficiency with Heat signs
Clears Heat and reduces childhood nutritional impairment
Childhood nutritional impairment with abdominal distention, afternoon fevers, hemorrhoids and dysenteric diarrhea
Drains Damp-Heat
Damp-Heat dysenteric disorder or sores

Contraindications

Use with caution in Spleen-and-Stomach Deficiency Cold.

Combinations

  • Yin-Deficient Heat presenting as recurring afternoon fever from steaming-bone disorder, or fever tied to childhood nutritional impairment

  • Heat and night sweats linked to childhood nutritional impairment, or alternating fever and chills — Heat at night followed by chills in the morning

  • Childhood nutritional impairment presenting with abdominal distention, fever, and poor appetite

    • Gan Jiang

    Chronic diarrhea or dysenteric disorder with blood in the stool

  • Unrelenting, bloody dysentery

    • Goose Gall Bladder

    Hemorrhoids

Notes

  • Regarded as pure Yin, this herb clears Heat of both Excess and Deficiency types, cools the Blood, and dries Dampness; it is particularly suited to cooling steaming-bone disorder and reducing childhood nutritional impairment.
  • It reduces childhood nutritional impairment and fits best when that disorder involves abdominal distention, afternoon fever, and dysenteric diarrhea.
  • Some sources classify it as a Damp-Heat-clearing herb.
  • Despite centuries of use in China, it has always been imported — from India, Nepal, Indonesia, and Tibet — and still is.
  • Hu denotes a foreign country, referring to Iran, and Huang Lian means Coptis — together the name signifies "Coptis from a foreign land."
  • It is frequently used for red, flushed eyes.
  • It addresses Heat arising from either Excess or Yin Deficiency, but it does not itself tonify Yin.
  • Listed under the Endangered Species Act, it requires a permit to export from or import into China and can be hard to source.
  • It is also applied in hepatitis.
  • Some sources credit it with killing parasites.
  • Hu Huang Lian and Rz. Coptidis Huang Lian are both considered pure Yin, able to cool Heat, drain Fire, dry Dampness, and cool the Blood. Hu Huang Lian is more intensely bitter, colder, heavier, and black, with a rapid downward-directing ability; it clears and drains Damp-Heat from the Lower Jiao and can guide directly to the site of disease when Dampness and Fire accumulate to cause hot dysenteric disorder, anal prolapse, bleeding hemorrhoids, bleeding dysenteric disorders, painful bloody urinary dysfunction, turbid Blood, and syphilitic sores. It is used for Excess-type disorders related to childhood nutritional impairment.
  • Hu Huang Lian and Rx. Stellariae Yin Chai Hu have similar effects, but Hu Huang Lian is the stronger of the two.

Appears in