In the sight of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), this herb is bitter, sweet, and slightly cold in nature. It goes to two meridians, including lung and heart. Its chief functions are to eliminate phlegm by cooling, moisten lung to arrest cough, and remove stasis to reduce swelling. Its main indications and uses are irritating dry cough caused by lung heat, hacking cough with little phlegm, cough due to overexertion and Yin deficiency, dry coughing and sputum with blood, stagnation in chest and heart, the consumptive lung disease, pulmonary abscess, pharyngitis, and acute mastitis.
