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Fetus-Quieting Carp Gruel

安胎鲤鱼粥 〔安胎鯉魚粥〕 ān tāi lǐ yú zhōu

Source: Tài Píng Shèng Huì Fāng 太平圣惠方

Ingredients

Actions: Quiets the fetus, stanches bleeding, and disperses swelling.

Indications: Aching lumbus, abdominal pain, water swelling, stirring fetus and flooding and spotting in pregnancy.

Method: Scale and gut the carp, cut into pieces, and boil to make a soup (including the head and tail). Add a strained decoction of the ramie to the soup, and add rice and cook into a gruel. Emphasis is placed on using live carp.

Dosage: This gruel should be taken twice a day for 3–5 days.

Rationale: Zhù má gēn is cold, sweet, and nontoxic. It enters the liver and heart channels. It clears heat, resolves toxin, and stanches bleeding. It is used for thirst in febrile disease, bloody urine, strangury, inhibited urination, vomiting of blood (blood ejection), red and white dysentery, cinnabar toxin, and swollen welling-abscess (yōng zhǒng). In clinical practice, it is commonly employed to treat stirring fetus, flooding and spotting in pregnancy, habitual miscarriage, and aching lumbus and abdominal pain in pregnancy. Modern research shows that Zhù má gēn contains caffeic acid, which accounts for its blood-stanching action. Carp is one of China's most commonly eaten fresh water fish. According to traditional theory, it is sweet in flavor and balanced in nature; it disinhibits water, downhears counterflow, precipitates qì, and promotes lactation. It is used in food therapy to treat water swelling, cough and counterflow, and breast milk stoppage.

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