Paradox of Hemostat and Move Xue Herbs

June 9, 2003

>>>Subj: Paradox of Haemostat & Move Xue Herbs?

6/9/2003 4:56:27 PM US Mountain Standard Time

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, traditional_Chinese_Medicine

CC: vBMA

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Hi All,

said:

> I wonder if reducing Chinese medicine's understanding of 'stop

> bleeding' and 'moving blood' SHOULD be completely reduced to just

> blood thinning or clotting.

Brian Carter said:

> I don't think we can completely reduce those CM treatment

> principles/actions to those WM actions- as with most things, there

> is probably a Venn diagram.

Notes from my files on Sanqi are below. They say that it is both a

Haemostat AND a Move Xue Herb. It is used in clinically

haemorrhage AND in Xue Stasis.

I would appreciate it if CHM experts would discuss the apparent

paradox whereby an herb may be a Haemostat AND a Move Xue

Herb at the same time, and also discuss the risk of inducing

haemorrhage or blood clots if used inappropriately in patients

predisposed to those disorders.

Best regards,

Phil<<<

All,

There are a number of herbs I have encountered over the years that act much like San Qi in that they both "move blood" and "stop bleeding." Cayenne comes to mind as the premier example. Perhaps if we research not only San Qi but these other herbs, we can begin to understand this seeming paradox.

According to Bensky and Gamble, these other Chinese herbs individually both stop bleeding and move blood, at least to some extent:

Pu Huang

Qian Cao Gen

Jiang Xiang

Lian Fang

Hua Rui Shi

Liu Ji Nu (topical bleeding only)

Xue Jie

Su Mu

Wu Ling Zhi

I know there are other well-known herbs which do the same thing, more or less, but I can't think of them right now. Can anyone else?

Joseph Garner