Giant typhonium rhizome is the dried tuber of the plant Typhonium giganteum, belonging to the Arisaema family. It can be cultivated or found in the wild. It is mainly produced in Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei, and Sichuan. The original plant grows in damp forests, mountain streams, ditches, and farmlands. It prefers cool, moist climates and shady, humid environments, thriving best in fertile, moist soil. It has a pungent taste, warm nature, and is toxic. It targets the stomach and liver meridians. Its effects include dispelling wind-phlegm, calming convulsions, removing toxins, dispersing nodules, and relieving pain. Clinically, it is used in its raw form or processed form.
bubble_chart Compendium of Materia Medica
Mingyi Bielu: It primarily treats heart pain, blood impediment, various facial ailments, and enhances the efficacy of medicines.
《Haishang Materia Medica》: It is highly warm and slightly toxic. It treats scabies, wind sores, facial scars, dampness in the scrotum, weak legs, various cold wind qi, and is beneficial when used in facial creams.
Kaibao Bencao: It primarily treats heart pain, blood impediment, various facial ailments, and enhances the efficacy of medicines.
Tangye Bencao: It is yang and slightly warm.
《Zhen》云: It primarily treats blood impediment and enhances the efficacy of medicines.
《Materia Medica》云: It primarily treats heart pain, blood impediment, and various facial ailments. It enhances the efficacy of medicines.
Bencao Gangmu: Giant typhonium rhizome is a yangming meridian herb. It resembles Aconite Lateral Root, hence the name, but it is not actually of the Aconite Lateral Root category. 《Chu Guo Xian Xian Zhuan》: Kong Xiu had scars on his cheeks, and Wang Mang bestowed jade powder and giant typhonium rhizome incense to eliminate the scars.
Bencao Jingshu: Giant typhonium rhizome is born from yang qi, hence its taste is pungent and slightly sweet, its qi is highly warm and slightly toxic, its nature is dry and ascending, and it is a yang herb among wind herbs. Dongyuan considered it purely yang, guiding the medicinal efficacy upward. It treats heart pain and blood impediment because wind-cold evil affects the heart, causing phlegm congestion in the heart meridian, leading to pain, and cold-dampness evil injures the blood aspect, resulting in blood impediment. Wind can overcome dampness, and pungent warmth disperses cold, hence it treats these conditions. Wind nature ascends, and pungent warmth disperses well, hence it treats various facial ailments and enhances the efficacy of medicines. Rihuazi used it to treat apoplexy, aphonia, all cold wind qi, and facial scars. Li Xun used it to treat various cold wind qi, weak legs, scabies, wind sores, dampness and itching in the scrotum, facial scars, and in facial creams. Danxi used it to treat wind-phlegm, all due to its ability to dispel wind and dry dampness, disperse nodules.简误: Giant typhonium rhizome is a drying herb. It is contraindicated in apoplexy with phlegm congestion. It is not suitable for children with slow convulsions.
Bencao Mengquan: It tastes sweet and pungent, and its qi is warm. It is purely yang and non-toxic. Some say it is slightly toxic. It treats various facial ailments and can be used in facial creams; it primarily treats blood impediment and cold pain. It also enhances the efficacy of medicines. It dispels various cold wind qi and resolves apoplexy and aphonia. Rubbing vinegar on the back treats tinea versicolor, especially effective for scabies; using eggplant stem to apply the medicine for three days cures it, avoiding bathing. Grinding it into powder treats dampness and itching in the scrotum and eliminates scars.
Bencao Chengya: Giant typhonium rhizome resembles Aconite Lateral Root in shape but is white in color. Its yang toxin is as fierce as Aconite Lateral Root. Its taste is pungent and warm, its efficacy matches fire heat, and it is a heart meridian herb. The classic says: The heart is the root of life, the transformation of spirit. Its brilliance is in the face, its fullness in the blood vessels. It is the taiyang within yang, connecting with summer qi, hence it enhances the efficacy of medicines, treats heart pain, blood impediment, and various facial ailments.《Medicinal Property Jie》: It tastes sweet and pungent, its nature is warm, non-toxic, and it enters the lung and spleen meridians. It primarily treats apoplexy, aphonia, all cold wind qi, various facial ailments, wind sores, scabies, heart pain, blood impediment, and dampness and itching in the scrotum. The best comes from Silla.
Note: White aconite is white and pungent, hence it enters the lung to treat wind-phlegm. It is sweet and warm, hence it enters the spleen to treat skin. Yang within yang can ascend, hence it treats facial ailments. Yaojian: It tastes sweet and pungent, highly warm, and slightly toxic. Its nature is ascending, guiding the medicinal efficacy upward. It avoids head wind and various winds, cold qi heart pain, wind-phlegm vertigo, turbid discharge, treats infantile convulsions and phlegm spasms, facial and nasal wind, black spots, wind thorns, eliminates facial scars, can be used in facial creams, also treats scabies, wind sores, dampness and itching in the scrotum, and various wind-dampness ailments. When used as medicine, it should be processed.
Bencao Beiyao: It dries, dispels wind-dampness, and treats facial ailments.
Acrid and sweet, toxic, extremely hot and purely yang. A medicine for the Yangming meridian, it can guide the medicinal effects upwards, treating various facial ailments. The Yangming meridian nourishes the face, and white aconite can remove facial seborrheic dermatitis, be used in facial creams, and eliminate blemishes. It replenishes liver deficiency and dispels wind-phlegm. It treats heart pain and blood stasis, various wind-cold ailments, apoplexy and aphonia, and damp itching in the lower regions.Benjing Fengyuan: Giant typhonium rhizome is pure yang, guiding the medicinal effects upward, and is a yangming meridian herb. It treats liver qi wind tinea and pudendal itch, washes away dark spots, and is used in facial creams. Its nature dries blood and consumes qi, hence it is contraindicated in apoplectoid stroke syndromes, even if there is phlegm congestion. It should not be given to children with slow convulsions.
Bencao Qiuzhen: [Comment] Dispels cold wind from the stomach meridian of foot yangming.
Giant typhonium rhizome specifically enters the stomach. Li Shizhen said: Because it resembles Aconite Lateral Root, it got this name. It is actually not of the Aconite Lateral Root category. It is pungent, sweet, and toxic, with a drying and ascending nature, making it a yang herb among wind herbs. Li Dongyuan stated that it is pure yang, capable of guiding the medicinal effects upward to the face, making it an essential herb for the yangming meridian. Various texts also record its ability to treat facial seborrheic dermatitis and spots, as the yangming meridian runs through the head and face, hence it is used in creams to eliminate spots. It is also used for apoplexy with loss of speech, various wind-cold conditions, blood impediment with cold pain, and itching in the lower yin regions. This herb is used to regulate and treat these conditions. If it were not drying in nature, how could it treat cold qi deficiency itching? If it were not for cold qi and cold itching, how could such a drying and intense herb be used? Therefore, it is not suitable for yin deficiency syndromes or children with spleen deficiency and slow convulsions, due to its pungent and intense nature. Pungency can disperse qi, and dryness can deplete yin. This herb is similar to Dahurian Angelica, but Dahurian Angelica also addresses muscle dampness and is not solely focused on yangming wind pathogens; this herb specifically disperses yangming wind-cold but does not address damp pathogens.
Depei Bencao: Pungent, sweet, very warm. Slightly toxic. Enters the qi aspect of the foot yangming meridian. Can guide medicinal effects upward. Expels wind-phlegm and drives out cold-dampness. Effective for all head and face ailments, heart pain with blood impediment, scrotal damp itching, acute and chronic infantile convulsions, and smallpox wind-cold that does not resolve, especially when the limbs and head do not rise.
Combine with Arisaema, Pinellia, grind fresh, and make into pig bile pills to treat summerheat convulsions with phlegm confusion and spasms in children; combine with Stiff Silkworm, scorpion in equal parts, grind fresh into powder, take with hot wine to treat apoplexy with loss of speech; combine with Patchouli in equal parts, grind into powder, take with rice water to treat persistent vomiting in children.
Contraindicated in spleen deficiency with slow convulsions and yin deficiency apoplexy.
Benjing Shuzheng: The main indication of giant typhonium rhizome lies in the joints. The joints, in terms of physical form, represent the boundary of yin-yang; in terms of movement, they represent the use of yang to distribute yin, and the extent of their power and force is greater below and diminishes as it goes upward. The greater power below is indicated for heart pain with blood impediment. The diminishing power upward is indicated for various facial ailments where the medicinal effects are guided. Blood impediment arises from noble individuals with weak bones and heavy skin, who sweat from fatigue, sleep without moving, and are exposed to slight wind, leading to body numbness like migratory impediment. This initially affects the blood vessels and gradually affects the heart, which governs the blood vessels, leading to pain. Before the pain starts, Astragalus and Cinnamon Twig Five Ingredients Decoction can be used to cure it. Once heart pain occurs, giant typhonium rhizome must be used to disperse yang qi, limiting the yin pathogens in the blood vessels and preventing their invasion. The Qianjin Fang only uses giant typhonium rhizome in the small Fischer Euphorbia Root pill for abdominal mass disease, otherwise it is used externally. Among external applications, except for one dental caries and worm pain formula, the rest are facial applications, all for dampness-heat stagnation. When qi stagnates and does not produce radiance, and moisture becomes astringent and increases dullness, moving qi and promoting moisture must involve the use of yang to distribute yin to guide the medicinal effects. Its treatment is very subtle, and its efficacy is also subtle. Expanding on these two principles, it can be used above to move qi and fluids, and below to move qi, blood, and phlegm-dampness, penetrating everywhere.
Bencao Xinbian: Sweet, pungent, warm in nature, pure yang, non-toxic. Some say it is slightly toxic, but this is incorrect. This herb is good at moving various qi and can be relied upon as a guide. Used with Ginseng, it can open aphonia in apoplexy; used with Poria and Coix Seed, it can remove cold-dampness impediment; used with Chinese Angelica and Sichuan Lovage Rhizome, it can unblock stagnant blood in the meridians; used with Rhubarb Rhizoma, it can remove stagnation and expel stasis. Modern people do not know this and only use it externally to reduce scars and treat scrotal dampness, which is a pity. Its nature is very drying, so it should not be used in cases of withered qi and blood, even if there is wind. It is also not suitable for phlegm congestion with fire symptoms.
Bencao Fenjing: Pungent, sweet, very hot. Pure yang. Yangming meridian herb. Can guide medicinal effects upward, treat various facial ailments, dispel wind, phlegm, impediment, and dampness. This herb is no longer genuine.
bubble_chart Modern Pharmacology
- Giant typhonium rhizome has a significant effect of dispelling phlegm.
- Giant typhonium rhizome has an inhibitory effect on Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
- Giant typhonium rhizome has anti-inflammatory effects.
- Giant typhonium rhizome has anti-tetanus effects.
- Giant typhonium rhizome has sedative and anticonvulsant effects.
- Giant typhonium rhizome has anti-arrhythmic effects.