Rhinoceros Horn

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Clears heat and cools the blood ... Xi Jiao is the classical animal horn for severe blood-heat, crimson eruptions, agitation, and high fever entering the nutritive and blood levels.
• Stops reckless bleeding ... traditional indications include epistaxis, hematemesis, blood in the stool or urine, and other bleeding driven by intense heat rather than deficiency.
• Resolves toxicity and calms convulsive heat ... historical use extends to swollen painful throat, dark eruptions, delirium, febrile convulsions, and heat-closing disorders.

Secondary Actions

• This is a prohibited endangered-animal medicine in modern practice ... the clinically accepted substitute is `buffalo-horn`, usually at a much higher dose.
• The historical status of Xi Jiao still matters for understanding old formulas, but that does not justify trade, purchase, or use of actual rhinoceros horn today.

Classic Formulas

• Xi Jiao Di Huang Tang ... hallmark blood-heat formula in which Xi Jiao cools deep heat and stops reckless bleeding.
• Qing Ying Tang ... nutritive-level heat formula where Xi Jiao historically cleared severe internal heat and agitation.
• An Gong Niu Huang Wan and related emergency formulas ... old versions include Xi Jiao for heat-closing patterns, but modern practice substitutes Shui Niu Jiao.

Classical References

• Traditional materia medica describes Xi Jiao as bitter, salty, and cold, entering the Heart, Liver, and Stomach to cool blood, resolve toxicity, and stop heat-driven bleeding or convulsions.
• Modern classical reading requires a substitution note ... when old formulas say Xi Jiao, present-day practice almost always means the buffalo-horn replacement.