39^ CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 



-ficulty. Extravagant properties are attributed to the drug. 

 Said to grow in the shade, it is a remedy for "fire" in the 

 system. It is used to bring out the eruption of smallpox, to 

 cure all fevers, phthisis, hemorrhage from the nose, stomach, 

 bowels or bladder, to counteract poison, sunstroke, ophthalmia, 

 toothache, intestinal worms, hemorrhoids, dry cough, fever in 

 the marrow, all sorts of ulcer, "and it is difficult to enumerate 

 all of its medicinal virtues." Some years ago it was introduced 

 into France as a certain specific in diarrhcea and dysentery. 

 Its virtues were probably due to being a mucilaginous drink 

 substituting all other medication, thus affording rest and an 

 opportunity for the diseased organs to recover. The jelly is 

 sweetened and eaten, but its principal use is as a domestic 

 cooling, demulcent, and laxative remedy. 



SCHIZANDRA CHINENSIS.— 5. P^ ^ (Wu-wei-tzu), 

 1477. This is confounded with its allied genus Kadsiira^ and 

 in Japan Kadsiira japonica is |^ 35. 5^ (Nau-wu-wei), and 

 Schisandra chinensis "i^ "^ %, (Pei-wu-wei), 996. The drug 

 is said to have five distinct tastes. The skin and pulp of the 

 fruit are sweet and sour, the kernels are pungent and bitter, 

 and the whole has a salty taste. This gives rise to the name, 

 "five flavors." The plant is a climber, and the fruit is a 

 berry, being black in the case of Schisandra nigra^ and red in 

 that of Kadsiira and Schisandra cJiiiicnsis. The fruit and 

 branches contain a great amount of viscid mucoid material, 

 and the Japanese women are said by Siebold to dress their hair 

 with it, it being also used to size the Japanese mulberry-bark 

 paper. The specimens of the drug generally contain portions of 

 the stalks of the berries, which are collected in a head as they 

 grow upon the trees which support the trailing plant. Tonic, 

 aphrodisiac, pectoral, and lenitive properties are ascribed to 

 the plant, although the Chinese unwisely reject the branches, 

 which yield a mucilaginous decoction, efficacious in dysentery, 

 gonorrhoea, and coughs. The plant is believed to contain the 

 quintessence of the five elements as the basis of its properties. 



SCIRPUS CYPERINUS.— fj % (K'uai-ts'ao). This is 

 mentioned in the Pentsao in a foot note to Gymnothrix 



