What it is:
This herb is thealmost ripe fruit of Evodia rutaecarpa (Juss.) Benth, (family Rutaceae), which ismainly produced inthe provinces of Gui-zhou, Guangxi, Hunan and Yunnan. It is harvested in autumn, dried in sunlight or at a low temperature,and used unpreparedor prepared with decoction of liquorice.

Property:
Pungent and bitter in flavour, hot in property, slightlypoisonous, acting on the liver, spleen and stomach channels.

Effects:
Dispellingpathogenic cold,drying dampness, soothing the liver, lowering theadverse flow of qi,and relieving pain.

Used for:
1. Pathogenic cold in the interior. To treat gastric and abdominal cold pain, this herb is used with dried ginger and aucklandia; fortreating periumbilical colic due to invasion by cold, it is usedwith lindera root,common fennel fruitand lichi seed; forrelieving headacheand salivation due to cold of deficiency type in the middle-jiao and adverse flow of liver-qi, it can be used with ginsengand dried ginger, as in Evodia Decoction (Wuzhuyu Tang); forarresting chronicdiarrhea or diarrhea before dawn due todeficiency of bothspleen-yang and kidney-yang, it can be used with psoralea fruit and nutmeg, as in Pill of Four Miraculous herbs (Sishen Wan).

2. Flaccidity and pain of the lower limbs due to cold-dampness. It is often used with chaenomeles fruit, as in Cock Crowing Powder (Jiming San).

3. Vomiting andacid regurgitation.For vomiting and acid regurgitation due to cold in the stomach, it can be used toge-ther with dried ginger and pinellia tuber; for the kind due to an attack of hyper-activity of liver-fire on the stomach, it should be used with coptis, as in Pill forPurging Liver-fire and Regulating the Stomach (Zuojin Wan). In addition, thepowder of this herb mixed with vinegarcan be applied in the arch of the foot to cure canker sores and hypertension by directing the patho-genic fire down.

Dosage and admi-nistration: 1.5-5g, decocted in water for an oral dose; proper dosage for external use.

Precautions:
It should not be givento patients with yin deficiency complicated by heat syndrome.