What are the functions and functions of licorice?

Licorice, also known as honey grass, is known as the "old country" and is a traditional Chinese medicine. The importance of licorice in traditional Chinese medicine can be seen from "ten medicines and nine herbs". It is loved by people in the East and the West. Medicinal materials come from the dried roots and rhizomes of Glycyrrhiza glabra or Glycyrrhiza inflata, a perennial herb in Leguminosae. Licorice, as its name implies, tastes sweet and is a natural sweetener. Glycyrrhrizae Radix contains glycyrrhizin, which is an effective component of licorice sweetness and can be a pure natural sweetener. Glycyrrhizin is about 80 ~ 300 times sweeter than sucrose, as sweet as honey.

Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch has a long history of application in planting areas of China. Because emperors built the capital of the Central Plains, the commonly used licorice resources have been consumed for a long time. Licorice originated in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong and Northeast provinces has been extinct or rarely distributed. At present, only Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai and Shaanxi Yulin can provide wild commercial medicinal materials. In the spring and autumn, it was used as medicine after excavation.

Morphological roots and rhizomes are stout, with a diameter of 1 ~ 3 cm. That's great. The stem is erect and multi-branched, with a height of 30 ~ 120 cm. The leaves are 5 ~ 20 cm long and the stipules are triangular-lanceolate. It blooms in July, purple and beautiful. After flowering, it bears pods and seeds, like beans. Racemes are axillary and have many flowers. The total pedicel is shorter than the leaves, and it is densely brown with scaly glandular spots and pubescence. Bracts oblong-lanceolate, 3 ~ 4 mm long; Calyx bell-shaped, 7 ~ 14 mm long, densely covered with yellow glandular dots and pubescence; Corolla purple, white or yellow; Ovary densely spiny hairy glands. The pod bends into a sickle or ring. Seeds 3 ~ 1 1, dark green, round or kidney-shaped, about 3 mm long.

Sex and taste are plain and sweet.

Meridian tropism: heart meridian, stomach meridian, spleen meridian and lung meridian.

Efficacy: invigorating spleen and qi, clearing away heat and toxic materials, relieving cough and phlegm, relieving pain, and harmonizing various drugs. But the effects of raw licorice and roasted licorice are different.

Raw Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch: It is flat in nature and sweet in taste, and has the functions of invigorating spleen and qi, clearing away heat and toxic materials, resolving phlegm and relieving cough, promoting qi circulation and relieving pain, and harmonizing various medicines. Can be used for treating spleen and stomach weakness, listlessness, palpitation, shortness of breath, cough with excessive phlegm, abdominal cramps or limb spasms with acute pain, carbuncle, swelling and sore, and relieving drug toxicity.

Roasted licorice: spleen and stomach, qi and pulse. Used for spleen and stomach weakness, mental fatigue, palpitation and pulse generation.

Its general law can be summarized as follows: the living clear away heat, and the ripe ones replenish the middle energizer. Raw licorice is used when heat syndrome and excess syndrome need clearing heat, and roasted licorice is used when deficiency-cold syndrome needs tonic.

Clinical application of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. There are two kinds of licorice: raw licorice and processed licorice. Remove impurities from dried rhizome of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch. Wash, fully moisten and cut into pieces, which will be called raw licorice. Mix raw licorice slices with honey, stir-fry until they don't stick to your hands, take them out and spread them in the air, and then give them to people who take the medicine, which is called baked licorice or honey-baked licorice. The commonly used dosage of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch is 3 ~ 9g, but when it is used as the main medicine, the dosage is 10 ~ 30g. Its dosage depends on: a large dosage of more than 30g can relieve pain and detoxify, a medium dosage of 6 6- 10/0g can tonify qi and tonify middle energizer, and a small dosage of 3-6g can be adjusted and medicinal.

Chemical composition: glycyrrhizic acid, flavonoids, amino acids, alkaloids, polysaccharides, etc.

It is suggested that pregnant women, lactating women, sexual dysfunction, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and menstrual period should not take licorice. It is clearly stated in the "eighteen oppositions" compatibility taboo of traditional Chinese medicine that Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch, Euphorbia Euphorbia, Daphne genkwa, Sargassum and Kansui are incompatible and should not be used together.

Compatibility prescription

1. Treatment of deficiency of heart-qi: Radix Glycyrrhizae Preparata, Radix Rehmanniae, Radix Ophiopogonis, Radix Codonopsis, Ramulus Cinnamomi and Colla Corii Asini. From Treatise on Febrile Diseases

2. Treating Shaoyin disease for two or three days, sore throat, it is not bad to use licorice soup: one or two of platycodon grandiflorum, two or two of licorice, two flavors, three liters of water, one liter of boiling, slag removal, and taking it after warm minutes. Treatise on febrile diseases with orange stalk soup

3. Those who treat lung flaccidity without coughing and foaming: four or two pieces of licorice (fried) and two or two pieces of dried ginger (cannon). Fine-cut the medicine, take three liters of water, boil one liter five times, remove me and take it at different temperatures. Licorice and ginger soup in synopsis of the golden chamber

4. Treating Wei Rong's qi deficiency, viscera weakness, abdominal distension, anorexia, diarrhea with bowel sounds, vomiting and vomiting: Ginseng (removing reed), Poria (peeling), Glycyrrhiza uralensis (frying), Atractylodes macrocephala, etc. Take the fine powder on the table, two yuan a glass of water each time, and fry until seven minutes, which can be taken orally, regardless of time. Add some salt, or order white soup. Fang Ju Sijunzi Decoction

5. For sore throat due to lung heat and phlegm heat: 6 grams of licorice (fried) and 3 grams of platycodon grandiflorum (soaked in rice for one night). Each dose 15g, decocted in water for one and a half minutes, and decocted half a piece of donkey-hide gelatin. From the Direct Prescription of Pediatric Medical Certificate

6. Treatment of leg and foot contracture or abdominal pain: Radix Paeoniae Alba 12g, Radix Glycyrrhizae Preparata 12g. Decoct with water to remove residue, and take it twice. Shaoyao Gancao Decoction in Treatise on Febrile Diseases

7. Prescriptions: 6 grams of raw licorice, raw file. Take three glasses of water, fry until one and a half cups, take me out and stop cooling. Half a cup at a time, drink carefully, if not, it will be more effective. It's from "The Record of the Holy Relics".

8. Treatment of chronic diarrhea and enteritis of livestock and poultry: Codonopsis pilosula, Zingiberis Rhizoma, Radix Glycyrrhizae Preparata and Atractylodis Rhizoma. From Huameng Huashu, Shandong

This article is summarized by Shandong Huameng Chinese Medicine Research Co., Ltd., please leave a comment!