I Can Hear the Heart's Voice of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Chapter 490 - 207: Identifying Medicinal Herbs

A small green booklet was pulled out from Lu Xuan’s pocket.

The pharmacy staff was visibly taken aback for a moment upon seeing the certificate. Carrying this around?

Probably no one would carry it around with them, right?

However, she didn’t think much of it, took Lu Xuan’s practitioner’s certificate, glanced at it to confirm it was correct, and then handed it back to Lu Xuan: "How many days’ supply do you need?"

"The maximum we offer here is a two-week supply."

"A week is fine."

The staff nodded and headed to the left side of the pharmacy under Lu Xuan’s gaze.

A row of herbal medicine cabinets was neatly arranged along the wall, with hundreds of small drawers, each with one or even three or four labels clearly indicating the names of Chinese medicines.

As the staff walked over, Lu Xuan and the three others also moved closer.

While she was still verifying the prescription, Lu Xuan reminded, "Before the medicine is individually packaged, could I take a look at it first?"

The staff glanced up, squinting slightly, then nodded.

She neatly placed seven sheets of yellow paper on the table, found the Gentiana on the prescription, and immediately placed it on a nearby large plate: "This is Gentiana, see for yourself."

After speaking, she went to find the second herb.

Lin Yongzhen and the others crowded around, looked at it, and curiously asked, "Xiaoxuan, don’t all these Chinese herbs look the same? Can you really tell good from bad?"

This question puzzled not only Lin Yongzhen, but even Ji Xiuwen, who studied Traditional Chinese Medicine, was somewhat curious.

There are many ways to distinguish Chinese medicine, and even those who study Traditional Chinese Medicine can’t claim to know it all.

Moreover, generally speaking, unless you specialize in pharmacology, you have few opportunities to handle Chinese medicine. In school, there’s a chance every now and then, but after graduation and entering a hospital, opportunities to handle Chinese medicine become rare.

For someone like Ji Xiuwen, who graduated and works in a pharmacy, it’s a bit better. Some who go directly to assist doctors may never touch Chinese medicine after graduation.

In a Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, herbal procurement generally has dedicated suppliers and has nothing to do with the doctors themselves.

Regardless of whether it’s good or bad, a small doctor can’t decide.

Even chief physicians or hospital leaders, those with decision-making power, don’t necessarily personally inspect the quality of Chinese medicines.

This ability to judge the quality of Chinese medicine is naturally not possessed by every Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor.

This is very different from ancient times.

In ancient times, most of the time, Chinese herbs were personally harvested and even processed by Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctors, so they were very clear about the quality of the herbs.

"Of course, you can tell."

Lu Xuan picked up a piece of Gentiana and introduced, "Gentiana, also known as Didan Grass or Mountain Gentian, is the root and rhizome of plants such as Gentiana or Trifloral Gentian in the Gentianaceae family.

This is a cold-natured, bitter-tasting Chinese medicine with the effects of purging liver and gallbladder fire and removing damp heat from the lower burner. It is commonly used to treat liver channel heat, convulsions, mania, headache, red eyes, sore throat, jaundice, hot dysentery, abscesses, sores and ulcers, scrotal swelling and pain, and genital itching. It can also be used with other medicines to treat Japanese encephalitis and is a commonly used medicine for clearing liver and gallbladder real heat.

It often grows in grassy slopes, thickets, and forest edges, and can be harvested in both spring and autumn, although the quality of Gentiana harvested in autumn is best.

After digging, you remove the stems and leaves, wash them clean, and dry them before using them as medicine.

However, there are indeed many counterfeits of this medicine, such as in the past when the dried roots of the herbaceous plant Clematis in the Scrophulariaceae family, commonly called Grass Gentiana, were used to impersonate Gentiana."

Ji Xiuwen leaned in for a closer look and asked, "If you really encounter it, how can you distinguish the real from the fake? I have seen Clematis before, and it indeed looks a lot like Gentiana. If you don’t look closely, you really can’t tell the difference. This is something I discovered only because I was in a pharmacy for a while; otherwise, I wouldn’t know Gentiana and Clematis are so similar."

"Look..."

Lu Xuan pointed at the Gentiana in his hand, "The real Gentiana has irregular, block-like dried roots, usually about 0.5-3 centimeters long and 0.5-1 centimeter in diameter, with a dark gray-brown or deep brown, shriveled surface with horizontal stripes. The top has stem marks or residual stem bases; it is brittle, easy to break, with a slightly flat cross-section that is yellow-brown with a very small woody core that is pale white.

Of course, you can further distinguish it by smell and taste. Gentiana has a faint smell, and when tasted, it is extremely bitter."

Following Lu Xuan’s introduction, Ji Xiuwen looked closely for a while and found it almost exactly as Lu Xuan described.

He just hadn’t tasted it, so he didn’t know how it tasted.

"What about the fake Gentiana then?" Ji Xiuwen pursued further.

"The fake Gentiana also has irregular block-like roots, but you can see depressions in the stem marks at the top, which is a relatively obvious feature."

Lu Xuan said, "Moreover, the fake Gentiana has roots clustered on the rhizome, cylindrical, 2-8 centimeters long, with a diameter of 0.1-0.2 centimeters, with a brown surface, flat or slightly longitudinally wrinkled; also brittle, easy to break, but the cross-section bark is tan, the wood is pale yellow; the aroma is faintly fragrant when smelled, and it is also bitter when tasted, but not as extremely bitter as the real Gentiana."

"Of course, it’s not just that the herbaceous plants of the Scrophulariaceae family can be highly deceptive; there is another medicinal herb that looks quite similar to Gentiana."

"What herb is that?"

"Ta’erqi."

"Ta’erqi?"

Ji Xiuwen was completely puzzled, as he had never heard of it.

Lu Xuan explained with a smile, "Ta’erqi is the root of the small root plant Ghost White. Unlike Gentiana, Ta’erqi is toxic and its effects differ from Gentiana. Its rhizome forms irregular block shapes, with depressions in the stem marks at the top. Long, slender roots grow from the lower end of the rhizome and all around. The roots are cylindrical, 6-12cm long, 2-3mm in diameter, with a brown surface, flat or slightly longitudinally wrinkled, the section is powdery white, the wood is yellow, and it has a bitter taste.