Bai Tou Weng #

Pulsatillae Radix #

bitter, cold

PRIMARY FUNCTION: #

Clears Heat and Resolves Toxicity

CLASSICAL MANIFESTATIONS:

• Disorders of the gastrointestinal tract
  • Dysentery
  • Diarrhea
  • Due to heat or damp-heat patterns

Bai Tou Weng is a cold herb so it treats heat pathogens and it is bitter so it eliminates the pathogens by draining them downward and out of the body. When the body goes into patterns of diarrhea or dysentery based on infection, the diarrhea is the body’s mechanism for attempting expulsion of the pathogen.

Stopping the diarrhea in such a case would keep the pathogen inside the body and prolong the sickness. Bai Tou Weng acts by taking the pathogen out of the body (bitter function) which is the same direction that the body is attempting to go with the diarrhea. This is very different than diarrhea caused by a deficiency pattern.

Bai Tou Weng can also treat blood in the stool when caused by heat by entering the blood level to cool the blood.

Channels: stomach, large intestine

COMMON APPLICATIONS AND CLINICAL POSSIBILITIES:

• Diarrhea
  • Due to heat patterns
• Dysentery
  • Due to heat patterns
• Hemafecia
  • Due to heat patterns
• Antimicrobial
• Antiparasitic
• Pain relief
• Epistaxis
  • Due to heat in the blood
• Hemorrhoids
• IBS
  • Due to heat patterns
• Crohn’s
  • Infection stage
• Ulcerative Colitis
  • Infection stage

Formulas:

• Bai Tou Weng Tang

Contraindications: none noted in classic texts but this herb should be used carefully if the patient has a spleen and stomach deficiency pattern because it is cold and bitter

Zoo Image: a beluga whale sits on the “dysentery forever” toilet while he spells out DAMP HEAT with toilet paper

Cassone Wellness