Seminar room with Andrew Flower - Yi Yi Ren

Notes

Botany

• Coix lachrymal jobi
• Seed

Properties

• Sweet
• Bland
• Cold

Channels entered

• Lungs
• Spleen
• Stomach
• Kidney

Dosage

• 9 - 30g

Actions

• Strengthens the Spleen and resolves Damp
  • Particularly useful for Lin Zheng
    • Heat dysuria: with Che Qian Zi and Hua Shi
    • Stone dysuria: with Jin Qian Cao and Hai Jin Sha
  • Used for diarrhoea with a weak Spleen in, e.g. Shen Ling Bai Zhu San
• Resolves Damp and relieves pain in Wind-Damp painful obstruction
  • The representative formula is Yi Yi Ren Tang
  • With atrophy or weakness in the legs caused by Damp Heat, it is used in Si Miao San
• Clears Heat and dispels pus
  • For lung, intestinal and skin abscesses or pus filled lesions
• Clears Damp-Heat digestive disorders
  • With herbs which aromatically transform Damp and those which clear Damp-Heat such as Cang Zhu, Bai Dou Kou and Huang Bai

Other considerations

• The unprepared form is best for the draining functions
• The dry fried form, Chao Yi Yi Ren, is best for supplementing the Spleen and is used, in particular, for diarrhoea
• Frequently appears in cancer formulas
  • Has in vivo and vitro anti-neoplastic effects shown, especially, against colon cancer cells
• Yi Yi Ren is used alone as a folk medicine for acne (as a porridge)
• It is not the same as pearl barley, although that has a similar function to drain Damp in western folk medicine
• Yi Yi Ren does not cause dryness in the way that, for instance, Cang Zhu can
  • It is an essential herb for deficient Spleen Yin – if you embrace that concept

Summary

Key points

Yi Yi Ren

• Tonifies the Spleen and supplements the Lungs
• Drains dampness from the joints and muscles in painful obstruction and expels pus from the skin