A story of prunella
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Holy Farmer (Shen Long) was the celestial being of medicine in folk legend. His great exploits of saving people from diseases were greatly praised by the people through the ages.
Once there lived a scholar called Mao Song who was honest and kind. Though he had studied The Four Books (The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, The Analects of Confucius, Mencius) and The Five Classics (The Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Changes, The Book of Rites, The Spring and Autumn Annals) since he was very young, he didn't pass the examination.
He was disconsolate all daylong and so was suffered from depression. Many nodules (i.e., scrofula) of the horsebean size appeared at his neck. Some of them had been ulcerated and suppurated. Many doctors invited all treat him with soothing the liver and resolving depression, but the disease was not cured but deteriorated.
His father had to go to the trouble of traveling a long distance to invite Holy Farmer. One summer day, he came to the foot of a mountain. The green grass was flourishing and the plants were in blossom. It seemed that he had come to the fairyland.
He wanna have a rest but fell in a faint because of tiredness. It was unexpectedly that he had come to the Holy Farmer's herbal garden. Holy Farmer was watering the herbs and fertilizing the soil when the father of Mao Song came to his garden. Seeing that a person fall down, Holy Farmer went out immediately to rescue him.
The father of Mao Song came to his consciousness soon. He was very grateful to Holy Farmer and told his troubles. So Holy Farmer took one kind of herb from his garden and told the father of Mao Song, "decoct the ball-like part of the herb and make your son take the decoction. The herb is called 'Xia-ku cao (the herb that withers in summer)', i.e. prunella, because it will wither in summer. It can only be picked in summer and it has the actions of clearing heat and dissipating the accumulation."
After he went back, he made Mao Song take the medicine, and the disease was cured before long.
Since then, they planted prunella and treated the common people with the herb.
The prunella is bitter and pungent in taste, cold in property, and enters the lung and liver meridians by tropism. It has the actions of clearing heat and dissipating the accumulation, and clearing the liver and brightening the eyes. In the case of scrofula caused by accumulation of liver qi, it can achieve good effects by using herbs of soothing the live and resolving depression. According to modern research in prunella, it has the actions of bringing high blood pressure and antisepsis and is used to treat scrofula, thyroid enlargement, mastitis, hypertension, etc.
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:13 pm
Thank You
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:20 pm
Hey, Tommy,
You are happy now.
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:25 pm
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