Channel ushering drug

The theory of channel ushering drug


Channel ushering drug, also known as guiding drug (New Century Chinese-English Dictionary), refers to certain drug which can lead other drugs works directly on the lesions. With a long-term of disease exploration, Chinese doctor found that certain herbs can selectively play some leading role in certain organs and meridians. And under the help of these herbs, the diseases can soon be cured eventually. It is what we usually called channel ushering drug.


The ancient Chinese doctor believes that each disease has its own meridian. That’s to say, no matter what kind of disease it is, it should be finally attributed to a certain organs or meridians. So to cure the disease, we should focus on the organs or meridians, and treat it in the root.


As we all know, different channel ushering drugs can guide the medicine to different meridians and organs. Therefore, the TCM we select should be in accordance with the location and meridian of the disease. Because only in this way can the medicine achieve the best therapeutic effect.


The effect of channel ushering drug


There are many brilliant expositions about effect of channel ushering drug, but to the clinical use point of view, it mainly works in the following two aspects:


A. Guiding the medicine to meridians. It means that the guiding drug often play the role of pioneers. The medicine goes first to meridians and gives the guide of the prescription. For example, the Baihu decoction syndrom focus on treating the heat of Yangming Channel. But if you use the gypsum for the guiding drug, then it can guide the prescription into Yangming Channel and give the effect of clearing heat and promoting Qi.


B. Guiding the drugs to the lesion. With an obviously tendency, some guiding drug can guide the drug act on the lesion directly. For example, cohosh and radix bupleuri in the buzhong yiqi decoction, as the guiding drugs, will harmnize the Qi and blood of the body.


The difference between channel ushering drug and medicinal usher


Channel ushering drug, is the drug that only put effect on the certain part of the body. It holds a strong selectivity that has significant meridian tropism ability. It can guide the medicine and work together with it to reach the root place. However, if the meridian or organ does not exist, then the medicine cannot be cited by channel ushering drug.


Medicinal usher, one of the characteristics in traditional Chinese medicine, is the taking method to conjunct with Chinese herbal medicine. The main function of it is to guide the other drugs to show their efficacy while expanding the application scope of the herbs. Besides, it also goes with the factors of reconciling stomach and detoxification.


Sometimes, this two kind of drugs are similar, but most of the time, they are different. Medicinal usher, unlike channel ushering drug, it holds the effect to enhance the efficacy, reconcile stomach, detoxification and flavoring. Except that, most of medicinal usher are the common drugs in the daily life and some of them are the food we used to eat. So when we happen to meet these, we should not make confusion.


The current situation about channel ushering drug


The channel ushering drug, however, hasn’t gained much attention by the experts. And not all the syndromes are suitable for the guiding drugs, so it needs some further study to be known by all the people in the world.