A Detailed Guide to the Benefits, Effects, Contraindications and Culinary Uses of the Chinese Herbal Medicine Lysimachia christinae (Jinqiancao)

Jinqiancao (Lysimachia christinae) is a Chinese herbal medicine we commonly use in daily life. It is the dried whole plant of Lysimachia christinae, a plant in the Primulaceae family. It includes large-leaf jinqiancao, small-leaf jinqiancao, Guang jinqiancao and red jinqiancao, and is distributed across all the provinces south of the Yangtze River. So, do you know what the benefits and effects and contraindications of jinqiancao are? Does it have side effects? And what are its culinary uses?

The benefits of jinqiancao

It clears heat and drains dampness, relieves strangury and reduces swelling. It is used for heat strangury, sand strangury, painful and difficult urination, jaundice with dark urine, carbuncles, swellings and boils, and venomous snake bites; as well as for liver and gallbladder stones and urinary tract stones. For heat strangury, it is especially good at treating the stone strangury pattern, and can be decocted alone in a strong brew and drunk in place of tea, or used together with lygodium spore (haijinsha) and chicken gizzard lining (jineijin). For damp-heat jaundice, it can be used with Yin Chen (Artemisia capillaris) and Zhi Zi (Gardenia jasminoides). In modern treatment of gallstones, it is combined with Yin Chen, Huang Qin (Scutellaria baicalensis) and Mu Xiang (Aucklandia lappa). For boils, swellings and toxic sores, snake and insect bites, and scalds, fresh jinqiancao can be pounded into juice and drunk, with the residue applied topically to the affected area.

The effects of jinqiancao

1. For liver and gallbladder stones, urinary tract stones, heat strangury and jaundice. Jinqiancao has a good effect on draining dampness, reducing jaundice and expelling stones to relieve strangury. To treat liver and gallbladder stones and jaundice, the herb can be decocted alone and drunk in place of tea, or combined with Yin Chen, Yu Jin (Curcuma aromatica) and Da Huang (Rheum officinale) to enhance its ability to clear the liver and gallbladder and expel stones.

2. To treat stone strangury and heat strangury, it can also be used alone for effect, or with lygodium spore, chicken gizzard lining and Shi Wei (Pyrrosia lingua) to enhance its power to clear damp-heat from the lower burner and relieve strangury while expelling stones. For stone strangury accompanied by symptoms of kidney deficiency, it can be combined with kidney-tonifying herbs such as Sang Ji Sheng (Taxillus chinensis) and Hu Tao Ren (walnut kernel).

3. For sore toxins, carbuncles and swellings, breast carbuncles, erysipelas, venomous snake bites and traumatic injuries. Jinqiancao has the power to resolve toxins, dissipate blood stasis, reduce swelling and relieve pain. The fresh herb is often taken internally or applied externally. It can be used alone by pounding fresh herb into juice to drink, or pounded and applied to the affected area, and it can also be combined with wild chrysanthemum, dandelion and Rohdea japonica to strengthen its heat-clearing and detoxifying effect.

4. For edema and abdominal distension, jinqiancao taken internally or applied externally has the effect of promoting urination and reducing swelling. Its use for lung-heat cough and high fever in children draws on its heat-clearing and detoxifying action.

Contraindications of jinqiancao

“Fujian Folk Herbal Medicine” states: “For all yin-type boils and various toxic conditions, and for those with spleen deficiency and diarrhea, taking it raw as pounded juice is contraindicated.” What this passage means is that people with yin-type boils caused by qi and blood deficiency with cold phlegm congealing and stagnating, or by wind-toxin heat from the five viscera attacking the muscles and sinking inward to the sinews and bones, or those with diarrhea due to spleen deficiency, must not consume jinqiancao.

The people for whom jinqiancao is suitable include patients with jaundice, edema, bladder stones, malaria, lung abscess, cough, blood ejection, strangury with turbid urine, vaginal discharge, rheumatic arthralgia, childhood malnutrition, convulsions, carbuncles and swellings, sores and tinea, and eczema.

Side effects of jinqiancao

Jinqiancao is greatly beneficial to the human body, but it is not suitable for everyone to take. In particular, people with high blood pressure, high blood lipids, heart disease and diabetes need to follow their doctor's advice and should not take it carelessly.

Every medicine has some toxicity, and no medicine can be taken over the long term. Jinqiancao is a diuretic and strangury-relieving medicine, and it is cool in nature. It has no stone-dissolving or stone-expelling function of its own; it simply uses its diuretic and strangury-relieving action to draw the stones out. Long-term use will harm the spleen and stomach. If the spleen and stomach are already weak, it should be used with caution, and it will also damage healthy qi, so that not only does it fail to expel stones, it actually interferes with stone expulsion and allows new stones to form. Long-term medication fails to expel stones because prolonged illness inevitably leads to deficiency and inevitably leads to stasis.

Culinary uses of jinqiancao

1. Jinqiancao can be decocted into a soup and taken directly, three times a day.

2. Jinqiancao can also be applied externally. First take an appropriate amount of jinqiancao, then place it in a container and pound it into juice for external application.

3. Jinqiancao can also be decocted together with chrysanthemum, dandelion and Rohdea japonica and taken as a soup.

4. Pound jinqiancao into juice, then warm an appropriate amount of yellow rice wine and take the pounded jinqiancao juice with the wine.

5. Jinqiancao can also be sun-dried, ground into powder, and then steamed or boiled together with pork liver and taken.

How to make jinqiancao tea

Ingredients: jinqiancao, lygodium spore.

Method: Wash the two prepared ingredients clean, then put them together in a pot, add water and decoct, finally keeping the medicinal liquid.

Usage: Drink the obtained medicinal liquid in place of tea; one dose per day is enough.

Effects: The main effect of this tea is to release the exterior and dispel cold, and it also has a heat-clearing and dampness-removing effect. In addition, if the body suffers from edema caused by nephritis, urinary tract infection or gallbladder stones, taking this tea can also help the body recover its health well.

How to make jinqiancao porridge

Ingredients: 30 grams of Patrinia scabiosaefolia (baijiangcao), 30 grams of fresh reed rhizome. Auxiliary ingredients: 15 grams of winter melon seed, 25 grams of jinqiancao. 60 grams of white rice.

Method:

1. Prepare all the ingredients.

2. Wash the Patrinia scabiosaefolia, fresh reed rhizome, winter melon seed and jinqiancao clean and set aside.

3. Decoct 1000 ml of water with the four ingredients from step 2 until about 500 ml of medicinal juice remains.

4. Then remove the residue and cook porridge with white rice; eat 1-2 times daily.