I. Is it necessary 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 herbs? The decoction vessels are generally tile jars 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 the efficacy of the drugs or even causing harm to the human body. Li Shizhen once said: “Where the decoction and avoid copper and iron, it is appropriate to use silverware tile pot”. Nowadays, ceramic casserole with cover is commonly used. What is the decoction procedure of Chinese medicine? Pour the medicine into the pot and spread it out, then add cold water until it is 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. But the soaking time should not be too long, especially in summer, so as not to cause drug enzymatic decomposition and mold decoction before soaking if more flowers and leaves in the drug, water absorption, decoction should be supplemented with water, so that the water is about 1-2 cm above the plane of the drug. ②Heating fire Generally use martial fire (rapid fire) before boiling the drug, and after boiling it is appropriate to change to civil fire (slow fire). However, some Chinese medicines for external diseases can also be decocted for about 5 minutes after boiling without changing the fire. The 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, 10-15 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. ④Second decoction (re-decoction) After the first decoction is finished, strain out the juice, re-add cold water until it is about 0.5-1 cm above the plane of the medicine, and continue to decoct on martial fire until it boils and then change to decoction on civil fire for 15-20 minutes. 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 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 shell, piercing nail, dragon bone, dragon tooth, turtle shell, 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) The purpose of later decoction is to reduce the loss of volatile oil and prevent the active ingredients from decomposition and destruction. ①Aromatic drugs containing volatile oil, such as peppermint, patchouli, wood, cardamom, sand, grass cardamom, sandalwood, incense, incense, artemisia, pine, etc. should be decocted afterwards, usually 5-10 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 flower powder, Pu Huang, small seeds, such as scape seeds, fine powdered drugs, such as Qing Dai, etc. should be packaged. 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 spinach, decoction should be wrapped to avoid irritating the throat and causing coughing by shedding the fluffy hair into the soup. (4) Melt into some gums or sugars, viscous, such as gum, deer horn gum, honey, caramel, etc., it is appropriate to add the right amount of boiling water to dissolve and then wash into the soup or melt into the soup to 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 absorption of 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) dissolved such as mannitol, xuanming powder, etc. can also be dissolved into the soup application (7) another decoction into some valuable drugs such as ginseng, American ginseng, deer antler, etc. can be another decoction, the juice into the decoction of the soup to take. (8) raw juice into such as fresh raw ground juice, raw lotus root, pear juice, leek juice, ginger juice, white foxglove juice, bamboo leach, etc., should not be into the decoction can be blended into the boiled soup to take. (9) Combine certain valuable drugs that do not dissolve in water or that are easily decomposed after heating, such as ginseng powder, niuhuang powder, antelope powder, panax ginseng 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 herbal medicines 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 it twice. However, for prescriptions with a large amount of medicine, the active ingredients may be more after two decoctions, so it can be decocted a third time and taken three times a day to save Chinese medicine resources and improve the efficacy to a certain extent.