Cannabis in traditional Chinese medicine
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Cannabis in traditional Chinese medicine covers the uses of the cannabis plant (大麻, dàmá) set down in the Chinese materia medica (本草, bencao) and in the formulas of Chinese medicine. The medical texts record every part of the plant: the seed, the female inflorescence, the leaf and the root, the cortex of the stalk and the water in which the stalks were retted. Only the seed, huǒmárén (火麻仁), is used in clinical practice today, as a moistening laxative listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia.[1]
E. Joseph Brand and Zhao Zhongzhen reviewed five standard bencao from the Shennong bencao jing to the Bencao gangmu of 1593, 84 later ones from the 12th to the 19th century and the 20th-century compendia. In many texts of the 2nd to the 12th century the inflorescence, mafen (麻蕡), heads the entry and the seed follows it. Later texts gave more and more space to the seed, and by the Qing dynasty many of them left the inflorescence out altogether.[1]
The seed
The Shennong bencao jing calls the seed (麻子) sweet and balanced, a drug that supplements the centre, boosts qi, makes the body plump and strong and keeps it from ageing.[2] Tao Hongjing wrote in the 6th century that the kernel was very good made into pills or brewed into wine, though slippery in nature.[3][1] The bencao often class cannabis with the grains, and Li Shizhen recorded the pressing of the seed for oil.[1] Chen Cangqi, an 8th-century author quoted in the Kaibao bencao of 973, wrote that the seed "makes the heart happy" (令人心歡).[3][1]
The Great Encyclopedia of Chinese Medicinal Formulas (中醫方劑大辭典), which holds 96,592 historical formulas, has 69 with the seed as a main ingredient.[1] Maziren wan, the "cannabis seed pill" for constipation that Zhang Zhongjing recorded around the 2nd century AD, is still prominent in clinical use and in the textbooks.[1] Zhang's Shanghan lun also puts the seed into zhigancao tang, a decoction for an irregular pulse with palpitations.[4] The Bencao gangmu gives, under the seed, a congee of rice cooked in the juice of crushed seed (maziren zhou) and a wine of roasted, powdered seed (damaren jiu).[5] The Damaren jiu was taken for severe pain in the bones, a use Brand and Zhao find unlike that of any other seed preparation.[1]
The Pharmacopoeia has defined huomaren in two ways. The editions of 2005 and 2015 define it as the dried ripe fruit, Cannabis Fructus. The edition of 2010 called it Cannabis Semen, the seed, while describing the fruit.[1]
The inflorescence
Three names in the bencao refer to the spike-shaped inflorescence: mafen (麻蕡), mahua (麻花, "cannabis flower") and mabo (麻勃, "cannabis spike"). Authors of different periods disagreed over which part of the plant each meant. In the Shennong bencao jing mabo is another name for mafen.[1] In Brand and Zhao's translation it says that "excessive consumption causes one to see ghosts and run about frenetically".[1][2] In the notes added to it, the Mingyi bielu, mafen is toxic and is gathered on the seventh day of the seventh month, the seed in the ninth.[1] Tao Hongjing wrote that mafen was rarely used in prescriptions.[1] Li Shizhen took mabo and mahua as one thing and gave them an entry apart from mafen. Brand and Zhao find that his division added to the confusion over the terms, which carried into the modern compilations.[1]
No named formula with the inflorescence is in the Great Encyclopedia of Chinese Medicinal Formulas.[1] Small mixtures with it appear in other books. In the Bian Que xinshu (1127–1270) the flower and the flower of datura make shuisheng san, a powder taken before moxibustion to sleep through the pain. The Bencao gangmu repeats it and adds the flower with the root of wild aconite for wind disease with numbness.[1] In the 17th-century Benjing fengyuan the flower serves as an anaesthetic, so that a stone needle can be put to a swollen abscess without pain.[1] Twentieth-century texts gave the inflorescence new uses, some of which, Brand and Zhao suggest, may have come from Western medicine: in 1905 Li Chenghu's Pharmacognosy gave cannabis for agitation, hysteria, spasmodic cough and nerve pain.[1]
The anaesthetic mafei san (麻沸散) of the surgeon Hua Tuo has been linked to cannabis by some authors because of the sound of its name. Brand and Zhao call the link "purely speculative", since the formula's ingredients are lost.[1]
Leaf, root and the retting water
The physician Sun Simiao (581–683) recorded pressing the juice from the leaves for the unbearable pain of a broken bone.[1] A Tang commentary preserved in the Zhenglei bencao gives the root, boiled in water, for a difficult birth, a retained afterbirth and uterine bleeding. It gives the water in which hemp was retted for wasting thirst (消渴), and the juice of pounded leaves for roundworm and as a dressing for a scorpion's sting.[3] In the Bencao gangmu the leaf is given for malaria and said to bring on a state of drunkenness.[1]
Preparations
| Preparation | Kind | Part of the plant |
|---|---|---|
| Damaren jiu | Traditional medicine | Seed |
| Maziren wan | Traditional medicine | Seed |
| Maziren zhou | Dish Traditional medicine | Seed |
| Runchang tang | Traditional medicine | Seed |
| Shuisheng san | Traditional medicine | Flower |
| Zhigancao tang | Traditional medicine | Seed |
Some combinations in the bencao have no name of their own:
- a pill of raw seed, acorus root (菖蒲) and guijiu (鬼臼) in equal parts, one taken each morning facing the sun, so that "after 100 days one will see ghosts". Li Shizhen placed it under mafen.[1][5]
- mabo taken with ginseng. Tao Hongjing wrote that adepts took it "and know of things that have not yet come". Li Shizhen called this "an overstatement" and gave the mixture for forgetfulness.[1]
- qixuan maren wan (七宣麻仁丸), a Tang formula that the Zhenglei bencao names, without its ingredients, as one of the same kind as Zhang Zhongjing's pill.[3]
The Korean Donguibogam of 1613 has the seed in zhigancao tang, which it calls gugamchotang, and in the pills daemainhwan and somainhwan. It takes somainhwan from the Yixue rumen of 1575.[6][7][8]
In practice today
In Taiwan in 2003 maziren wan ranked 40th of the 301 formulas most often prescribed under the National Health Insurance, at more than 10,705 kg of concentrated dry extract. The seed was also prescribed on its own as an addition to formulas, at 967 kg, 140th of 353 single drugs by weight.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 Brand, E. Joseph; Zhao, Zhongzhen (2017). "Cannabis in Chinese medicine: are some traditional indications referenced in ancient literature related to cannabinoids?". Frontiers in Pharmacology. 8 108. doi:10.3389/fphar.2017.00108.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 孫星衍 (Sun Xingyan); 孫馮翼 (Sun Fengyi) (eds.). "麻賁". 神農本草經 [Divine Farmer's Materia Medica] (in 中文). Retrieved 3 October 2026 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 唐慎微 (Tang Shenwei). "卷二十四：麻蕡". 證類本草 [Materia Medica Arranged by Classification] (in 中文) (Siku quanshu ed.). Retrieved 3 October 2026 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ 張仲景 (Zhang Zhongjing). "卷第四：辨太陽病脈證並治（下）第七". 傷寒論 [Treatise on Cold Damage] (in 中文). Edited by 林億 (Lin Yi) and others (Song ed.). Retrieved 29 October 2026 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 李時珍 (Li Shizhen). "卷二十二：穀之一（胡麻；大麻）". 本草綱目 [Compendium of Materia Medica] (in 中文) (Siku quanshu ed.). Retrieved 3 October 2026 – via Wikisource.
- ↑ "Gugamchotang(灸甘草湯)A". Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ "Daemainhwan(大麻仁丸)". Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ "Somainhwan(小麻仁丸)A". Korean Traditional Knowledge Portal. Retrieved 29 October 2026.