Chinese wintergreen

Middle-aged patient with a cold, aching lower back and knees that give way on stairs, worse in winter, with a soft deep pulse showing kidney deficiency behind the damp

Heavy prolonged periods in a woman who is also tired, cold and sore in the low back, so that bleeding and deficiency need treating together

Irritation of urinary tract.

Overview. Lu xian cao is the whole dried plant of Pyrola calliantha, a small evergreen perennial of the heath family that forms low rosettes of leathery rounded leaves and sends up a short spike of nodding white flowers in shaded mountain forest from the eastern Himalaya across central and southwestern China. The Chinese pharmacopoeia accepts both this species and Pyrola decorata under the same drug name, and the plant is gathered in summer and dried until the leaves turn purplish brown. Its name, deer's tooth herb, comes from a tale of injured deer seeking it out, and it has been used since the Song period as a warming remedy for aching joints and a weak back, with secondary uses for bleeding and chronic cough.

Clinical Notes. This is a gentle wind-damp herb with a tonic edge, which is what sets it apart from the more dispersing bi-pain herbs such as clematis root or gentiana macrophylla. Choose it when joint pain sits on a background of kidney deficiency: chronic aching low back and knees, weak legs, cold intolerance, a soft or deep pulse.

Action and Therapy. External. A splendid but much neglected agent in infusion, as a wash for sore throat and aphthous ulcerations of the mouth. Internal. As it has similar properties to uva ursi and chimaphila and exerts a similar antiseptic action, it is of much value in urinary disorders with irritation and tendency to ulcerations and sepsis. The urine contains much mucus and sometimes blood.

Properties and Uses. The leaves are astringent and stimulant, diffusive in warm preparations, but rather tonic in cold preparations. They act largely on mucous structures, especially of the lungs and generative organs; promote the discharge of tenacious mucus, and leave a tonic but not particularly drying impression; and are used in debilitated coughs with viscid expectoration, leucorrhea, catarrh of the bladder, and sub-acute gonorrhea.