Do I need to wash Chinese herbs before decoction? Most herbal medicines are raw and are generally processed and prepared before being sold, so there is no need to wash them before decoction. If you feel that the herbs are dirty, you can rinse them with water quickly before soaking, but do not soak and rinse them to prevent the loss of a large amount of active ingredients that are easily soluble in water, thus affecting the efficacy of the herbs. What kind of utensils should be used for decocting Chinese medicine? The decoction vessels are generally tile pots and casseroles, but enamel and stainless steel can also be used, but avoid using aluminum, iron and copper vessels to prevent these metal objects from reacting with the drugs and affecting their efficacy or even causing harm to the human body. Li Shizhen once said: “Where the decoction and avoid copper and iron ware, it is appropriate to use silverware tile pot”. Nowadays, ceramic casserole with cover is commonly used. What is the decoction procedure of Chinese medicine? (1) Soaking Pour the medicine into the pot and spread it out, then add cold water until it is about an inch above the level of the medicine and soak for 0.5-1 hour. In winter, if you use 20-30 degrees warm water to shorten the decoction time, but do not use boiling water to avoid the sudden solidification of proteins in some plant cells by heat and the formation of a dense envelope in the outer layer, or the formation of colloids of some macromolecules, which is not conducive to the leaching of active ingredients. However, the soaking time should not be too long, especially in summer, so as not to cause drug enzymatic decomposition and mildew, if there are more flowers and leaves in the formula, the water absorption should be added before decoction, so that the water is about 1-2 cm above the plane of the medicine. (2) Heating fire Generally, before the drug is boiled, it is used martial fire (rapid fire), and after boiling, it should be changed to civil fire (slow fire). However, some herbal medicines for external diseases can also be decocted for about 5 minutes after boiling without changing the fire. (3) Decoction time should be determined according to the nature of the drug and disease, the difficulty of dissolving the active ingredients and the medication situation. Generally speaking, it takes 20-25 minutes for the first decoction to start boiling, 15-20 minutes for the second decoction, 5 minutes for the first decoction and 10 minutes for the second decoction of antiphlogistic drugs. For tonic, the first decoction should be boiled for 30-40 minutes, and the second decoction should be boiled for 25-30 minutes, and the first decoction should be boiled for 10-30 minutes, and the second decoction should be added to the pot in the last 5-10 minutes. (3) Second decoction (re-decoction) After the first decoction is finished, strain out the juice, re-add hot water until it is about 0.5-1 cm above the plane of the medicine, and continue to decoct on a military fire until it boils and then change to a civil fire. (1) First decoction The purpose of first decoction is to increase the solubility of the drug, reduce the toxicity of the drug, and give full play to the therapeutic effect. (1) Ores: Shells and horns are hard and the active ingredients are not easy to be decocted, so they must be broken up and decocted first. Such as raw gypsum, cold water stone, red stone fat, Ling magnetic stone, ochre, sea floating stone, pores, natural copper, oyster, stone cassia, mother of pearl, sea clam shells, corrugated, turtle plate, turtle nail, piercing nail, dragon bone, dragon tooth, turtle nail, buffalo horn, etc., can be broken first decoction 30 minutes. ②Toxic drugs: such as aconite, sophora, shanglu, etc., to be first decocted for 1 to 2 hours, first decoction, long decoction can achieve the purpose of reducing or removing toxicity. (3) Certain botanicals: such as geranium, fire hemp, dendrobium, only first decoction is effective. (2) After decoction The purpose of after decoction is to reduce the loss of volatile oil, the active ingredients from decomposition and destruction. ① Drugs with aromatic smell and volatile oil, such as mint, patchouli, wood, cardamom, sand, grass cardamom, sandalwood, descending incense, incense, artemisia, pine, etc. should be decocted afterwards, usually 5 to 10 minutes before the decoction of Chinese medicine. ② Drugs that should not be decocted for a long time, such as hooked vine, almonds, rhubarb, senna, etc. should be put down afterwards. (3) Packed decoction ①Pollen drugs, such as powdered pollen, Pu Huang; fine seeds, such as scape seeds; fine powdered drugs, such as Qing Dai, etc. should be packaged for decoction. ②For drugs containing more starch and mucilage, such as psyllium in the decoction process is easy to sticky pot paste, coking, so need to package decoction. (3) For drugs with fluffy hair, such as raspberry, decoction should be wrapped to avoid irritating the throat and causing coughing by shedding fluffy hair into the soup. (4) Melting and rushing in For some gums or sugars with large viscosity, such as gum, antler gum, honey, caramel, etc., it is appropriate to add the appropriate amount of boiling water to dissolve and then rushing into the soup or into the soup to melt and take. If mixed decoction, it will lead to the viscosity of the liquid, affecting the dissolution of other ingredients, gum is also subject to certain losses (5) decoction of soup instead of water General volume of large water-absorbing drugs such as loofah, Zao Xin Tu, money grass, glutinous rice root, etc. should first be decocted with water, the resulting juice to remove the dregs and then decoct other drugs. (6) Dissolve such as mannitol, xuanming powder, etc. can also be dissolved and rushed into the soup. (7) Decocted into some valuable drugs such as ginseng, American ginseng, deer antler, etc. can be decocted separately, and the juice is added to the decocted soup for consumption. (8) Raw juice into such as fresh raw ground juice, raw lotus root, pear juice, leek juice, ginger juice, white foxglove juice, bamboo leech, etc., should not be decocted into the decoction can be blended into the boiled soup to take. (9) Combine with certain precious drugs that do not dissolve in water or are easily decomposed after heating, such as ginseng powder, niuhuang powder, antelope powder, panax notoginseng powder, musk powder, whole scorpion powder, cinnamon powder, gansui powder, etc. Combine the powder in the decoction and stir it. How many times should a pair of Chinese medicine be decocted? Generally speaking, the active ingredients in a pair of Chinese herbs are greatly reduced after two decoctions, so it is better to decoct twice. The regular method of serving is to divide each dose into 2 to 3 doses, one dose per day; for serious and urgent cases, there are 1 to 2 doses per day; special methods of serving are: tonsure method – to finish one pair of medicine at a time; frequent method – to take a small amount of decoction of one pair of medicine at a time, unlimited times.