Chinese medicine in life” Shanghai Hospital of Integrative Medicine Fu Zhiquan, Chief Physician, Department of Gastroenterology, Shanghai Hospital of Integrative Medicine Fu Zhiquan (Specialist Clinic: Monday mornings; Special Needs Clinic: Thursday afternoons) When the Dragon Boat Festival comes, people start to be busy, buy mugwort leaves in an endless stream of people, pedestrians in the hands of the mugwort leaves, and some bicycles with mugwort leaves hanging on the bike. I also did the same, bought fresh leaves hanging in front of the door. My neighbor said, “Why are you still superstitious? I told him, this is not superstition, it is reasonable, but also conducive to health. Every time I always think back to my childhood, every year Dragon Boat Festival, my mother to welcome the morning dew to pick the wormwood, the windows, the door are stuffed full. Dragon Boat Festival, the weather is gradually hot, mosquitoes and flies breeding, all the poison out, ancient times there is the Dragon Boat Festival to the door to hang a handful of leaves custom. As the saying goes: “Hanging mugwort before summer, mosquitoes and flies are difficult to enter the door”. At that time, my mother often used mugwort boiled water for us to take a bath, hot mugwort incense is very special, the whole body is washed all over, so the whole summer skin is rarely contaminated by poisonous gas. Growing up, once I suddenly talked about unbearable menstrual cramps after getting wet, my mother immediately used cotton cloth to make a small cloth pocket, filled with mugwort leaves, wearing it on my body to protect my stomach. Two months later, the pain was greatly reduced, the original fear of cold hands cold, now also much better, and appetite is also good. Since then, after the family is always the annual Dragon Boat Festival to buy mugwort leaves hanging in front of the door. Ancient people believe that mugwort is a cure for all diseases of the herb, inserted in the door used to get rid of all kinds of poison to ward off evil spirits and miasma. Folklore circulated “three years at home, ai, Langzhong not to” the proverb. Such as “Jing Chu chronicles” recorded: “May 5, pick Ai as a person hanging on the portal, to avoid poisonous gas”. Ai is a perennial herbaceous plant of the Asteraceae family. There are also herbs, Qi Ai, medical grass, mugwort. Ai used in medicine, a long history, more than two thousand years ago, Mencius said: “seven years of disease, seek three years of Ai”. It means that a chronic disease of many years should be cured by more than three years of aged mugwort. The ancestor of Ai also gave many beautiful reputation, such as honoring the elders as “Ai”; describing the young and beautiful women as “less Ai”; “Poetry” said that the maintenance of the “Paul Ai”; the “Records of the Grand Historian” to the “peace and quiet also written”. Peace and quiet is also written “Ai An” and so on, can be seen in the ancestors of the love of Ai. Ai leaves to prevent plague and cure a variety of diseases has been thousands of years of history, the ancient book records: “May 5, the four people and step on the grass, and there are fighting the play of the grass …… hanging on the door to get rid of poisonous gas”. Why picking wormwood on this day? Because the May picking of Artemisia absinthium than the June medicinal value, Duan Yang, the day is hot, Artemisia absinthium crazy, lost its delicate and moisture. Dragon Boat Festival picking of Ai, after drying, “Chenjiu can be used”, so the folk have “Dragon Boat Festival cut Ai” said. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that, the Ai leaves warm, bitter and pungent flavor, to the liver, spleen, kidney meridian, can warm menstruation to stop bleeding, cold pain, cold on the cold menstrual disorders, menstrual bleeding, leakage, pregnancy blood and abdominal pain and other conditions have a miraculous effect. The Materia Medica Prepara says it is bitter and pungent, warm and ripe hot, pure yang nature, can return to the dying yang, through the twelve meridians away from the three yin, there is a rationalization of qi and blood, expel cold and dampness, warming the uterus, stopping the blood, stopping coughing and asthma, warming the middle and opening up, menstruation, and fetal regulation and other effects. It can cure cold pain in the heart and abdomen, abdominal pain and long diarrhea, vomiting blood, leakage, menstrual disorders, cholera, etc., and can kill worms and cure ringworm, and can be used externally to cure skin diseases. Compendium of Materia Medica” said it can “warm, cold, in addition to dampness”, and mentioned that “the body face warts and eyes, moxa fire moxibustion three strong that is removed”. It can be seen, moxibustion can be “through all the meridians and cure a hundred diseases”, there are through the meridians and activate the blood, blood circulation, dispel cold and dampness, back to the yang to save the reverse, prevention and prolongation of life and other efficacy, such as the famous foot three miles of health care moxibustion, will be able to enhance the whole body immune function, prevention of disease, health care, longevity. Mugwort leaves used in moxibustion, in addition to its combustibility is good, but also because of the Mugwort leaves XinShan aroma odor has a certain medical effect, so with the “needle” is the same name, a total of “acupuncture” therapy. In addition, studies have shown that the smoke produced by the burning of moxa leaves also has a certain therapeutic effect on human disease. In folklore, such as adults once by the wind-cold cough, with a cluster of ai decoction to wash feet, or cut the leaves into nine slices of moxa, onion three or five, decoction served warm, take sweat, can be cured; women menstrual cramps, dysmenorrhea, abdominal pain, etc., with the cooked moxa made of bibs, pockets of its umbilical cord and abdomen, and play a role in warming the Palace of the effect of dispersal of cold. It can be seen, the Dragon Boat Festival hanging in front of the door of Ai leaves, is a folk custom, but also a health habits conducive to health. Ancient poetry: “Dragon Boat Festival grass, wild moxa fuzzy light with clothes; have no intention to compete with the face of the state, the name has its own people know”. Just because there are mugwort, zongzi, xionghuang, dragon boat, the advent of the Dragon Boat Festival does not seem to be a difference. It can be said: “courtyard mugwort purse full, Dragon Boat Festival dumplings flavor and fragrance”. [Tips] 1, ginger jujube leaves drink: Ingredients: 10 grams of ginger, 20 jujube, 3 grams of leaves, brown sugar 30 grams. Method: ginger, jujube, moxa washed into a sand jar, add the right amount of water, slow-fire decoction, jujube rotten, add brown sugar, as a substitute for tea, with the amount of discretionary drink. Efficacy: blood warming the uterus, qi pain; for women amenorrhea, menstrual pain, uterine cold. 2, moxa ginger simmering eggs: Ingredients: 15 grams of moxa leaves, 25 grams of ginger, eggs 2. Method: moxa, ginger, eggs with the right amount of water with cooking, to be cooked eggs, peel off the shell, back into the original soup simmering for a few moments. Eat eggs, drink soup, 2 times a day. Efficacy: warm menstruation dispersal of cold, stop bleeding and stabilize the fetus; applicable to leakage, fetal restlessness, habitual abortion, etc. 3, mugwort leaf cockle wine: Ingredients: mugwort leaf 10 grams, 5 grams of red cockle, 3 grams of Rhizoma Ligustici Chuanxiong, 500 milliliters of yellow wine. Preparation: Ai Ye, red cocklebur, Chuanxiong chopped fine, immersed in yellow wine, soaked for 15 days can be activated. Each time 10 to 20 ml, 2 times a day; Efficacy: Promote blood circulation and eliminate blood stasis, relieve depression and relieve pain; applicable to women with post-partum qi and blood disharmony, liver depression and indolence of the two ribs distension and pain, abdominal pain, chest tightness, etc.; also has a therapeutic effect on uterine fibroids. (To be continued)