What are the main medicinal values of rhinoceros horn
Rhinoceros horn is also known as black rhinoceros horn, fragrant rhinoceros horn, Indian rhinoceros, etc. It is the horn of animals in the Rhinocerotidae family such as the white rhinoceros, black rhinoceros, Indian rhinoceros, Javan rhinoceros, and Sumatran rhinoceros. Used as medicine, it has the effects of clearing heat, cooling blood, and removing toxins, and has a therapeutic effect on conditions such as high fever in warm febrile diseases, delirium, convulsions and spasms, and blood-heat vomiting and nosebleeds. Let us take a look below at the medicinal value of rhinoceros horn!
Medicinal value of rhinoceros horn
[Nature and flavor] Sour and salty in flavor, cold in nature.
[Meridians entered] Heart and liver meridians.
[Effects] Clears heat, cools blood, and removes toxins. Mainly treats high fever in warm febrile diseases, delirium, convulsions and spasms, and blood-heat vomiting and nosebleeds.
Medicinal discussions on rhinoceros horn
1. "Compendium of Materia Medica": Rhinoceros horn is a medicine of the Foot Yangming. The stomach is the sea of water and grain, and food and drink and medicines must first be received by it, so rhinoceros horn can resolve all kinds of toxins. The five zang and six fu organs all receive qi from the stomach, and wind pathogens and heat toxins must first attack it, so rhinoceros horn can treat various blood conditions and the syndromes of fright mania, macules, and pox.
2. "Commentary on the Materia Medica": Rhinoceros horn is used by people today to treat hematemesis, epistaxis, and hemafecia, as well as the syndromes of blood accumulation in cold damage with mania and delirium, jaundice, macules, and sores and abscesses that are dense, extremely hot, and sunken and black. All of these take its effects of entering the stomach and heart, dispersing pathogens and clearing heat, cooling blood, and removing toxins.
3. "Benjing Fengyuan": Rhinoceros horn treats hematemesis, epistaxis, and blood in urine and stool, and Rhinoceros Horn and Rehmannia Decoction is a specific medicine for this. If the illness is chronic and qi is deficient, it is again strictly contraindicated, because it can dissipate blood and qi. For pox sores with blood heat and flourishing toxins, it is especially essential. However, during the sixth or seventh day when the pustules are forming, it is again strictly contraindicated, because it can transform pus into water. After scabbing, for residual toxin carbuncles and swelling, it is then not contraindicated; only for pox with qi deficiency and flourishing toxins must it absolutely not be used.
Precautions for the use of rhinoceros horn
1. "Leigong's Treatise on the Preparation of Drugs": Pregnant women should not take it; it can disperse and treat qi.
2. "Collected Commentaries on the Materia Medica": Pine resin acts as its guide. It is antagonistic to mushrooms and Lei Wan.
3. "Compendium of Materia Medica": Cimicifuga acts as its guide. It is antagonistic to aconite and aconitum kusnezoffii.
4. "Commentary on the Materia Medica": For pox sores with qi deficiency and no major heat, it should not be used. For cold damage yin syndrome with restlessness, it should not be mistakenly used.
Pharmacological effects of rhinoceros horn
1. Cardiac effect: A 10% decoction of rhinoceros horn has a cardiac effect on both in situ and isolated toad hearts and isolated rabbit hearts, and can strengthen cardiac contractility, increase amplitude, increase heart rate, and increase minute output. When the dose is increased, after the isolated toad heart shows a cardiac effect, it soon shows signs of toxicity and finally stops in systole. The hot infusion of rhinoceros horn has the effect of significantly strengthening the heartbeat and restoring it to its original state in frog hearts with weakened function caused by pilocarpine.
2. Effect on blood vessels: When a 10% rhinoceros horn decoction is used to perfuse the lower limb blood vessels of toads, the blood flow is seen to decrease compared with normal within a short time, and then gradually increases, exceeding normal flow, suggesting that it first constricts and then dilates the lower limb blood vessels.
3. Effect on blood pressure: When rhinoceros horn decoction is injected intravenously into anesthetized dogs and rabbits, the blood pressure first rises, then falls, and then continues to rise. Its blood pressure-lowering effect has little relationship with the vagus nerve. The phenomenon of blood pressure first rising slightly and then falling may be related to its first constricting blood vessels and then dilating them. When blood pressure recovers and then continuously increases, this may be because its excitatory effect on the heart at this time exceeds the effect of blood vessel dilation, or because the blood vessel dilation effect has already disappeared at this time.
4. Antipyretic effect: Rhinoceros horn has no antipyretic effect on rabbits made febrile by Escherichia coli, but there are reports that intravenous injection of a saline infusion of rhinoceros horn can bring the body temperature of rabbits made febrile by Escherichia coli down to normal. For rabbits made febrile by warm stimulation or intracerebral injection of epinephrine, intravenous or subcutaneous injection of rhinoceros horn infusion has no antipyretic effect.
5. Anticonvulsant effect: There are reports that rhinoceros horn has a certain calming effect, and its main site of action on the central nervous system may be mainly in the spinal cord. Experiments have shown that administering a rhinoceros horn suspension by gavage to mice (3 g/kg body weight) for three consecutive days has no obvious effect on the effects of pentylenetetrazol and caffeine, but for the effect of strychnine, it seems to prolong the latent period of response and the survival time of the animals, and the response rate and mortality of the animals also decrease somewhat. At the same time, it can prolong the sleep time of animals in the pentobarbital sodium group.
6. Other effects: Intravenous injection of rhinoceros horn injection into healthy rabbits can cause the total white blood cell count to show a brief sharp decrease followed by a relatively long-lasting increase. It can also shorten coagulation time and increase platelet count.
Selected medicinal formulas using rhinoceros horn
1. To treat Taiyin warm disease with delirium: Rhinoceros horn tip 10 g (ground and taken as a draft), Yuanshen heart 15 g, lotus plumule 2.5 g, bamboo leaf rolled heart 10 g, Forsythia heart 10 g, Ophiopogon with heart 15 g. Decoct in water and take.
2. To treat cold damage with flourishing internal heat toxin and red macules on the body: Rhinoceros horn (filed), Ephedra (with root and node removed), and Gypsum 50 g each, Coptis (with fibrous roots removed) 1.5 g, and Gardenia fruit kernel 75 g. For the above five ingredients, coarsely crush and sift. Take 25 g per dose, with one and a half cups of water, decoct until one cup remains, remove the residue, and take warm.