Jishiteng (Paederia) for Promoting Digestion and Relieving Pain
Jishiteng is the whole herb or root of Paederia scandens of the Rubiaceae family, also called Jishiteng (alternate spelling), Chouteng (Foul Vine) and Maohulu, named for its foul smell like chicken droppings. It is widely distributed throughout the Yangtze River basin and regions south of it.
According to traditional TCM theory, Jishiteng is sweet and bitter, slightly cold in nature, entering the Spleen, Stomach, Liver and Lung meridians. It promotes digestion and strengthens the stomach, resolves phlegm and stops cough, clears heat and resolves toxin, reduces swelling and stops pain, and expels wind-dampness. It treats rheumatic painful impediment, food stagnation with abdominal distension, infantile nutritional impairment (gan ji), diarrhea, dysentery, heatstroke, jaundice, hepatitis, hepatosplenomegaly, cough, scrofula, intestinal abscess, nameless swellings, wet ulcerated feet, burns and scalds, dermatitis, traumatic injuries, and snake and scorpion bites. It is mostly decocted for oral use at 15-60 g; external use is appropriate amount, pounded and applied or decocted for washing.
Jishiteng can be used to treat cancer pain, especially pain from digestive-tract tumors, and it can also relieve bone-metastasis pain, though medication must be persisted with for a while to take effect. An injection made from Jishiteng treated 531 cases of gastrointestinal pain, biliary colic, renal colic and various traumatic, fracture, postoperative and neuralgic pains: pain disappeared in 328, was relieved in 191, and was ineffective in 12, for an effective rate of 97.7%.
Pounded and applied externally, the leaves, stems and roots of Jishiteng also relieve pain and treat chronic non-healing skin ulcers. In addition, the Anhui Zhongcaoyao includes a formula in which Jishiteng leaves are crushed and rubbed on the affected area to treat neurodermatitis.
Modern pharmacological research confirms that Jishiteng indeed has sedative, analgesic and anticonvulsant effects. Intraperitoneal injection of total Jishiteng alkaloids suppresses spontaneous activity in mice and prolongs pentobarbital sleep, showing a certain sedative effect. Intraperitoneal injection of an injection made from Jishiteng leaves or roots at 50-150 g/kg raised the pain threshold in mice by 1.5-2.8 times; it acts more slowly than morphine but lasts longer.
Total Jishiteng alkaloids also inhibit intestinal muscle contraction, antagonize the intestinal spasm caused by acetylcholine, and counteract intestinal spasm caused by histamine. In addition, Jishiteng is antibacterial, inhibiting Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae.
For a long time Jishiteng was an undignified folk herb. Famous materia medica works did not include it, and contemporary textbooks omit it, so few clinical TCM doctors use it, and most pharmacies and TCM hospital dispensaries do not stock this folk herb. But in recent years more and more doctors and patients use it, especially cancer patients in pain who self-medicate with Jishiteng, mostly gathering it themselves or buying it online. The Jishiteng entry in the Zhongyao Da Cidian also describes the tumor-promoting effect of paederoside, though Jishiteng is not known for antitumor action.
The veteran TCM doctor Yu Zhenchu was skilled at treating disease with folk herbs; his experienced formula for wind-cold-damp painful impediment used three folk herbs: Qiyelian root 40 g, Tudijin head 30 g, Jishiteng 30 g, stewed together with lean pork. Folk treatment of chest oppression from qi stagnation and gastric distending pain commonly uses Jishiteng 30-60 g decocted in water; for infantile gan ji, 15 g of dried Jishiteng root is stewed with one pig stomach, eating the meat and drinking the broth; for traumatic injury, 30 g of Jishiteng root and vine is decocted with half wine and half water. Jishiteng also treats dysentery: 30-120 g with an appropriate amount of ginger, stewed with meat, treats red dysentery.
The famous Sichuan veteran TCM doctor Li Kongding treated acute pulpitis with a formula called "Chicken-Pig Decoction": Jishiteng 100 g, pork 200 g (half fat, half lean), with 1500 ml water, simmered gently for 1 hour without salt; eat the meat and drink the broth, divided into two doses, one dose daily, continuing 2-3 times after pain stops to consolidate.
In addition, clinical reports show that Jishiteng 30 g with Honghaier 15 g and sucrose as a guide has some efficacy in treating chronic osteomyelitis, though the course is long. Jishiteng injection also reduces renal damage in acute renal failure, and eye drops made from Jishiteng distillate treat electric ophthalmia.
Jishiteng is of very low toxicity: intravenous injection of 250 g/kg Jishiteng injection in mice caused no adverse reaction, and two weeks or more of use caused none; histopathological examination of brain, heart, kidney and spleen showed no abnormal changes. The LD50 of Jishiteng could not be determined, indicating it is safe and non-toxic.