Folk Experience in Treating Hepatobiliary Diseases with Wild Persimmon Root and Twigs
The wild persimmon is a common plant, a large deciduous tree of the Ebenaceae family, genus Diospyros. It grows in central-southern China, in mountain natural forests or secondary forests, though I have also seen it often in Beijing, where some residential compounds cultivate it as an ornamental.
In the formal literature on Chinese herbal medicine, I have not yet seen any record of wild persimmon root, branches or leaves being used medicinally.
However, I recently received a report from a patient with bile-duct cancer whose condition had improved markedly after drinking tea brewed from wild persimmon root.
This patient had previously seen a certain doctor at the Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. By last year she was gravely ill, kept alive only by the various tubes inserted into her body, and had nearly given up treatment.
After going home, following a local folk remedy, she brewed tea from the root of the wild persimmon tree and drank it.
When she recently went to the hospital for a reexamination, her recovery was remarkably good, and the doctor who had long treated her was astonished. To avoid bringing unnecessary interference to the daily life and work of that doctor and patient, I will not publish their names here.
The patient's son hoped to spread this experience, but, lacking influence himself, told his fellow patient, who then passed the news on to me. I respectfully write this article to promote this folk experience; reportedly, the local people use wild persimmon root to treat liver and biliary tract diseases.
Although this case is a real one, like many of the folk remedies I have introduced before, its range of applicability may be limited.
The Zhongyao Da Cidian (Chinese Materia Medica Dictionary) records the therapeutic action of persimmon root; its main effects are to clear heat and detoxify, cool the blood and stop bleeding, and it treats conditions such as metrorrhagia, bloody dysentery, hemorrhoids, and "spider-back" sores.
The effects of wild persimmon root I found on Baidu include treating jaundice hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, scalds from fire and water, and traumatic injuries. The dosage is 12-30 grams; it may be used alone or decocted with jujubes. The patient described in this article, however, drank wild persimmon root as a tea.
From these sources, the effects of wild persimmon root are very close to those of ordinary persimmon root—mainly clearing heat and detoxifying, cooling the blood and stopping bleeding, and activating blood and resolving stasis.
I hope this folk medication experience can help some patients troubled by hepatobiliary disease.