Rhubarb has the effect of clearing heat and inducing dampness, and the use of rhubarb alone to eliminate dampness and heat from the body is limited.
Dampness-heat is a term used in Chinese medicine to describe the pathological changes that occur when dampness and heat accumulate in the body, leading to dampness-heat symptoms throughout the body. Common causes are spleen and stomach disorders, feeling of external evil, dietary disorders, emotional factors and so on. According to the condition identification, the common types of evidence are spleen and stomach damp-heat syndrome, liver and gallbladder damp-heat syndrome, intestinal damp-heat syndrome and so on.
Rhubarb is the dried root and rhizome of Polygonum multiflorum, Rhubarbum palmatum, Rhubarbum tannicum, or Rhubarbum medicinalum. It is bitter in taste and cold in nature. It belongs to the spleen, stomach, large intestine, liver and pericardium meridians, and can diarrhea and attack accumulation (treating constipation by passing stools), clearing heat and fire, cooling the blood and detoxifying the toxin, expelling blood stasis and clearing the meridians, promoting dampness and subduing jaundice (expelling dampness and subduing jaundice).
Rhubarb is used in treating constipation due to solid heat, epistaxis due to blood-heat, carbuncle (carbuncle occurring in the intestines and bowels, manifested by fever, pain in the right abdomen and palpable lump), abdominal pain, menstrual occlusion due to stasis of blood, post-partum stasis and obstruction, bruises, dysentery due to dampness-heat, jaundice and urinary redness, gonorrhea (increase in the frequency of urination, dribbling and astringent pain), edema; and externally for treating burns.
It is recommended that patients use the drug under the guidance of a doctor, do not take the drug on their own.