Runchang tang
More actions
| Kind | Traditional medicine |
|---|---|
| Part of the plant | Seed |
| Language | Chinese |
| Country | China |
|---|---|
| Still made | Not known |
Runchang tang (潤腸湯, rùncháng tāng, "intestine-moistening decoction") is a decoction of Chinese medicine for constipation, given in the Wanbing huichun (萬病回春) of the Ming physician Gong Tingxian. Shelled cannabis seed (麻仁) is one of its eleven drugs.[1]
Making runchang tang
Angelica root (當歸), prepared and fresh rehmannia (熟地, 生地), shelled cannabis seed, skinned peach and apricot kernels (桃仁, 杏仁), bitter orange (枳殼), magnolia bark (厚朴), scutellaria (黃芩) and rhubarb (大黃) are taken in equal parts, with half as much liquorice (甘草). One dose is cut up, boiled in water and taken hot on an empty stomach, and the medicine is stopped once the bowels move. Adjusted, powdered and made up with honey into pills the size of a parasol-tree seed, the drugs become runchang wan (潤腸丸), taken 50 at a time with boiled water. Spicy and heating foods are to be avoided.[1]
Gong Tingxian set the decoction against each kind of constipation he described, among them constipation from heat, from weakness after a long illness, from the loss of fluids through heavy sweating and from wind, and that of old people whose blood and qi have dried and of women after childbirth. He varied it for each: for old people, more angelica and rehmannia, ginseng, suoyang (鎖陽), ophiopogon and bush-cherry kernel (郁李仁) and less peach kernel; for a mother who has lost much blood, ginseng and safflower, with the scutellaria and peach kernel left out. With areca nut added it becomes tongyou tang (通幽湯).[1]