What are the effects and uses of the pill bug?

The pill bug is also known as the damp bug, the ball bug, the ground louse, and so on. There are many species; the medicinal source is the dried body of the woodlouse or pill bug, an animal of the family Armadillidiidae. It has the effects of breaking blood and promoting water movement, and of detoxifying and relieving pain. It is used to treat chronic malaria with splenomegaly, amenorrhea and abdominal masses, urinary retention, infantile convulsions with locked jaw, toothache, oral thrush, and various sores. Let us take a look below at the effects and uses of the pill bug.

The medicinal effects of the pill bug

[Nature and taste] Sour and salty in taste, cool in nature, non-toxic.

[Meridian entry] Liver and kidney meridians.

[Effects] Breaks blood and promotes water movement, detoxifies and relieves pain. Mainly treats chronic malaria with splenomegaly, amenorrhea and abdominal masses, urinary retention, infantile convulsions with locked jaw, toothache, and oral thrush and various sores.

The pharmacological effects of the Chinese medicine pill bug

1. Analgesic effect: The water extract of the pill bug, given to mice by gavage or intraperitoneal injection, has a clear analgesic effect. A large dose of the decoction of the pill bug, taken orally, has an analgesic effect on various types of severe cancer pain.

2. Treating leprosy: After refining the pill bug with chloroform, ethanol, acetone, and ether into a solution or tablets, oral or external use can treat leprosy.

Medicinal discussions of the pill bug

1. "Shennong Bencao Jing": Mainly treats qi strangury with inability to urinate, women's menstrual blockage and blood masses, epilepsy, tetany, and cold and heat; promotes the water passages.

2. "Bencao Gangmu": Treats chronic malaria with cold and heat, toothache caused by wind worms, infantile locked jaw and convulsions, oral thrush, and reversed smallpox pustules; neutralizes the poison of the archer fish, spider poison, and centipedes entering the ear.

3. "Bencao Qiuyuan": Mainly treats cold and heat with blood stasis and accumulation, damp phlegm, throat disorders, convulsions and epilepsy, blood diseases, and panting.

Medicinal selected prescriptions of the pill bug

1. Treating malaria: Pill bug and fermented soybean, fourteen pieces each, pound together and mix well. Take two pills before the attack, and take one pill when the attack is about to occur.

2. Treating amenorrhea: Pill bug 1 qian, red peony root 4 qian, peach kernel 3 qian, safflower 3 qian, salvia root 5 qian. Decoct in water and take.

3. Treating infantile locked jaw and lockjaw: Pill bug, squeeze out the juice and give the child a small amount to take.

4. Treating postpartum difficult urination: Pill bug 7 pieces. Roast into powder, make one dose, and take it mixed with wine.

5. Treating difficult urination: Pill bug 1.5 qian, plantain seed 4 qian, oriental waterplantain rhizome 3 qian, rush pith 1 qian. Decoct in water and take.

6. Treating bloody strangury: Pill bug 9 pieces. Roast dry and grind into fine powder, take all at once, twice a day.

7. Treating functional uterine bleeding: Roast the pill bug until yellow and grind into powder, take 2 qian each time, taken with a child's urine.

8. Treating teeth eaten by worms, with a decayed hole and pain: One damp bug. Wrap it in cotton and bite on the decayed painful area.

9. Treating wind toothache: Damp bug, croton kernel, and black pepper, one piece each. Grind evenly, make rice pills the size of mung beans, wrap one pill in cotton and bite on it; after a long while spit out the saliva that flows out.