Asiatic Moonseed Rhizome

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Clears heat and resolves toxicity - Bei Dou Gen is best known for swollen painful throat, mumps, toxic-heat cough, and other inflammatory upper-body conditions in which heat and swelling predominate.
• Reduces swelling and alleviates pain - it may be chewed, swallowed slowly, or otherwise used so that its bitter-cold action directly reaches severe sore-throat and throat-swelling presentations.
• Resolves damp-heat and promotes elimination - older indications include dysentery, enteritis, jaundice, and related intestinal heat disorders in which dampness and toxicity mingle.
• Dispels wind-damp for painful obstruction - beyond throat use, it also appears in traditional rheumatic and arthralgia applications when swelling, heat, or toxicity complicate the pain.

Secondary Actions

• Bei Dou Gen is a slightly toxic heat-clearing rhizome and is more forceful than food-grade cooling herbs, so it is not treated as a casual household remedy.
• It should be clearly distinguished from Shan Dou Gen and from the true Chinese cinquefoil entry in this dataset, because the similar names can conceal very different plants and safety profiles.

Classic Formulas

• Bei Dou Gen with Ban Lan Gen and Niu Bang Zi (北豆根配板蓝根牛蒡子) - common toxic-heat sore-throat combination for swelling, pain, and hot cough.
• Bei Dou Gen with Bai Tou Weng and Huang Lian (北豆根配白头翁黄连) - used when damp-heat dysentery or enteritis needs both detoxification and intestinal heat-clearing.
• Slow-swallow throat methods with powdered Bei Dou Gen - traditional administration strategy for severe throat swelling so the bitter-cold action contacts the affected area directly.

Classical References

• TCM Wiki describes Bei Dou Gen / Rhizoma Menispermi as bitter, cold, and slightly toxic, entering the Lung and Stomach systems and used for sore throat, lung-heat cough, mumps, diarrhea, jaundice, rheumatic disease, hemorrhoids, and bites.
• American Dragon adds Large Intestine affinity and warns that overdose can cause epigastric pain, acid regurgitation, vertigo, sweating, chest oppression, tachypnea, agitation, nausea, vomiting, and low blood pressure.
• IMPORT NOTE: the stub slug called this herb 'Chinese Cinquefoil,' but Bei Dou Gen is actually Asiatic moonseed rhizome; the true cinquefoil herb in this sequence is herb #212 Wei Ling Cai.