What are the effects and uses of Asparagus fern?
Asparagus fern, also known as Wuzhu, Yujinshancao, Yuejingshancao and so on, is a perennial evergreen herbaceous plant of the genus Asparagus in the Liliaceae family. Used as medicine, it has the effects of nourishing yin and promoting body fluid production, eliminating toxins and fighting cancer, clearing heat and resolving phlegm, and nourishing yin and moistening dryness. It has therapeutic effects on dry cough due to lung dryness, consumptive cough, thirst due to fluid damage, restlessness and insomnia, internal heat and excessive thirst, constipation due to intestinal dryness, diphtheria and so on. Now let us take a look at the effects and uses of Asparagus fern!
Medicinal effects of Asparagus fern
[Nature and flavor] Sweet and bitter in flavor, cold in nature.
[Meridians entered] Lung, kidney, stomach and large intestine meridians.
[Effects] Nourishing yin and promoting body fluid production, eliminating toxins and fighting cancer, clearing heat and resolving phlegm, and nourishing yin and moistening dryness. It mainly treats dry cough due to lung dryness, consumptive cough, thirst due to fluid damage, restlessness and insomnia, internal heat and excessive thirst, constipation due to intestinal dryness, and diphtheria.
Medicinal discussions of Asparagus fern
1. "Shennong Bencao Jing": Mainly treats various sudden wind-dampness hemiplegia, strengthens the bone marrow, and kills the three worms.
2. "Bielu": Stabilizes lung qi, removes cold and heat, nourishes the skin and flesh, boosts strength, promotes urination, and although cold in nature it can tonify.
3. "Yaoxing Lun": Mainly treats cough and counterflow qi of the lung, rapid breathing and shortness of breath, removes heat, frees kidney qi, treats pulmonary atrophy with abscess and pus expulsion, treats damp scabies, stops excessive thirst, and removes heat stroke.
4. "Qianjin Fang": Treats consumptive damage and severe injury, senile decline and emaciation, hemiplegia with loss of movement, wind-dampness with numbness, cold impediment, accumulations in the heart and abdomen, malignant sores, abscesses and swelling with scrofula, and also treats impotence, deafness, and blurred vision.
5. "Rihua Zi Bencao": Calms the heart, moistens the five viscera, benefits the skin, improves complexion, tonifies the five strains and seven injuries, treats lung qi disorders with cough, resolves phlegm, wind impediment and heat toxin, wandering wind, and restlessness with blood ejection.
Medicinal selected prescriptions of Asparagus fern
1. To treat pulmonary atrophy with cough, vomiting of saliva and froth, mild warmth in the heart, and dryness of the throat without thirst: take fresh Asparagus fern, pound and extract one sheng of juice, one dou of wine, one sheng of maltose, and four he of Ziwan (Aster tataricus), place in a bronze vessel and decoct over water until it can be made into pills. Take one pill the size of an apricot, up to three times a day.
2. To treat dryness-heat of the lung and stomach with phlegm-stagnation cough: Asparagus fern (core removed) and Ophiopogon (core removed) in equal parts. Decoct the above two ingredients into a paste, refine with white honey to collect, and hold in the mouth warm and swallow from time to time.
3. To treat asthma in women, vexing heat of the hands and feet, bone-steaming night sweats, dry mouth with craving for drinks, and swelling of the face and eyes: Asparagus fern ten liang, Ophiopogon eight liang, and raw Rehmannia three jin (extract juice to make a paste). Grind the above two ingredients into powder, combine with the paste and form pills the size of wutong seeds. Take fifty pills each time, swallowed with decocted Xiaoyao San. In the Xiaoyao San, remove licorice and add ginseng.
4. To treat blood deficiency and lung dryness, cracked skin, and pulmonary atrophy with cough of pus and blood: freshly dug Asparagus fern in any amount, wash clean, remove the core and skin, finely pound, wring out the juice and simmer over a slow fire in a clay pot into a paste. Use one or two spoonfuls each time, taken on an empty stomach with warm wine.
5. To treat kidney jaundice with insufficiency of true yin: Asparagus fern, Huai Rehmannia, Anemarrhena, and Phellodendron. Decoct the four ingredients together three times, remove the residue, and mix with Xuanwu glue to collect into a paste for taking.
6. To treat pulmonary tuberculosis: Duo'ermu, Baibu, and Digupi 15 grams each, Ophiopogon 9 grams, and Zhe'ergen 30 grams. Simmer in water or stew with meat and eat.
7. To treat blood ejection and hemoptysis, Asparagus fern: (soaked in water, core removed) one liang, and prepared licorice, apricot kernel (skin and tip removed, stir-fried until cooked), Fritillaria (core removed, stir-fried), white Poria (skin removed), and donkey-hide gelatin (crushed and stir-fried with clam powder into beads) half a liang each. Grind the above into fine powder, refine with honey and form pills the size of pellets. Dissolve one pill in the mouth and swallow the saliva, up to ten pills day and night.
8. To treat pulmonary taxation with wind-heat: cook and eat Asparagus fern (skin and core removed), or dry and grind into powder, add honey to make pills and take them.
9. To treat whooping cough: Asparagus fern and Ophiopogon 15 grams each, Baibu root 9 grams, Trichosanthes seed 6 grams, and tangerine peel 6 grams. Decoct twice; for ages 1 to 3, divide each dose into 3 portions; for ages 4 to 6, divide each dose into 2 portions; for ages 7 to 10, take the whole dose at once.
10. To treat unilateral dropping of the small intestine: use Asparagus fern three qian and Lindera five qian, decoct in water and take.
11. To treat abscesses and cellulitis: use Asparagus fern three to five liang, wash clean, pound finely, filter the juice with good wine, and take at once. If ineffective, take the medicine again, and it will surely heal.
12. To treat pulmonary atrophy with cough, vomiting of saliva, and dryness without thirst: use fresh Asparagus fern pounded to one dou of juice, one dou of wine, one sheng of maltose, and four he of Ziwan, and decoct thickly into pills. Take one pill each time, the size of an apricot kernel. Take three times a day.
13. To treat wind mania attacks (ringing in the ears like cicadas, and pulling pain in both hypochondria): use Asparagus fern (core and skin removed), sun-dry, and pound into powder. Take one spoonful each time, swallowed with wine. Take three times a day, and it is suitable for long-term use.