Witnessed by: TCM
Gui jiu (Dysosma versipellis), of the Berberidaceae family. Perennial herb of the deep shade, one or two peltate leaves cut into angular corners raised on a stalk, the dull red flowers hanging beneath the leaf; native range: shaded moist ravines and bamboo forest of central and southern China. Globally recognized as gui jiu (鬼臼) · ba jiao lian (八角蓮) in Chinese, and Chinese mayapple, eight-cornered lotus in English. The part used is rhizome and root. A hard knotted rhizome, brown-black without and pale within, ringed with the pitted scars of old stems; the taste bitter and pungently acrid, numbing the tongue.
In this cross-tradition database, we analyze how this substance operates across world medicine systems — tracking its traditional tastes, temperatures, tissue affinities, post-digestive effects, and planetary correspondences across Ayurveda, Unani, and Western herbalism.
GUI JIU
IDENTITY
Name
- Common
- gui jiu
- Scientific name
- Dysosma versipellis (Hance) M.Cheng ex T.S.Ying
- Family
- Berberidaceae
Form
- Part used
- rhizome and root
PROPERTIES
Nature
Taste
how the plant declares itself on the tongue
- TCM
- bitter · pungent
Temperature
- TCM
- warm
Affinity
where in the body it travels
Organs / channels
- TCM
- Liver · Lung
PRACTICE
Virtue
Actions
- TCM
- resolves toxin and disperses swelling, dispels wind-damp, invigorates the blood and dissipates masses, checks pain
Cautions
- Contraindications
- pregnancy absolutely; the weak and the depleted; children; not for continued use
- Toxicity
- toxic — the rhizome carries podophyllotoxin, a spindle poison; overdose brings nausea, violent vomiting, abdominal pain and bloody purging, then liver and kidney injury, delirium, peripheral neuropathy and death from respiratory failure, the picture coming on late and killing days after; deaths from self-dosing are on record
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