bubble_chart Source This product is a processed product of the daughter root of the perennial herbaceous plant Aconite Mother Root (Aconitum carmichaeli Debx.) from the Japanese buttercup herb family. It is mainly produced in Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, and other regions. Harvesting takes place from late June to early August. The processing of materia medica includes salt Aconite Lateral Root, black aconite slices (black shun slices), white aconite slices, prepared common monkshood daughter root, and roasted aconite slices.
bubble_chart Properties and Meridians
Acrid and sweet, hot. toxic. act on heart, kidney and spleen channels.
bubble_chart Efficacy
Restoring yang to save from collapse, assisting yang and replenishing fire, dissipating cold to relieve pain.
bubble_chart Indications
- Used for yang collapse syndrome/pattern. This product can assist heart yang, warm spleen yang, and tonify kidney yang, making it the "first choice for restoring yang to save from collapse." It treats chronic illness with physical weakness, yang qi decline, internal excess of pudendal coldness, or yang collapse syndrome/pattern caused by profuse sweating, severe vomiting, or diarrhea. It is often used with Dried Ginger and Liquorice Root to restore yang and save from collapse, such as in Cold-Extremities Decoction. For chronic pestilent qi on the verge of collapse or excessive bleeding leading to qi collapse following blood loss, it is often paired with Ginseng, as in Ginseng and Aconite Decoction.
- Used for deficiency-cold type impotence, uterine coldness, cold pain in the epigastrium and abdomen, diarrhea, edema, etc. This product has a warm and pungent nature, with the effect of drastically tonifying primordial yang and replenishing fire to disperse yin. For kidney yang deficiency and life gate fire decline leading to impotence, uterine coldness, cold pain in the lower back and knees, and frequent nocturia, it is often used with Cassia Bark, Asiatic Cornelian Cherry Fruit, and Prepared Rehmannia Root, as in Right-Restoring Pill. For spleen-kidney yang deficiency and internal excess of cold-dampness causing cold pain in the epigastrium and abdomen and loose stools, it is often used with Tangshen, White Atractylodes Rhizome, and Dried Ginger, as in Aconite Middle-Regulating Decoction. For spleen-kidney yang deficiency causing pudendal coldness and edema, it is often used with White Atractylodes Rhizome, Poria, and Fresh Ginger Rhizome. For spleen yang deficiency and internal obstruction of cold-dampness causing yin jaundice, it can be used with Virgate Wormwood, White Atractylodes Rhizome, and Dried Ginger. For yang deficiency with cold invasion, it can be paired with Ephedra and Asarum.
- Used for agonizing arthralgia. This product has a strong effect of dissipating cold to relieve pain. It is often used for wind-cold-dampness impediment causing joint pain throughout the body, especially for severe agonizing arthralgia, often used with Cinnamon Twig, White Atractylodes Rhizome, and Liquorice Root.

bubble_chart Documentation
- Benjing: "It governs wind-cold cough and counterflow, pathogenic qi, warms the middle, incised wounds, breaks hard abdominal masses and blood stasis, cold-dampness wilting and paralysis, spasms and knee pain, and inability to walk."
- Bencao Huiyan: "Aconite Lateral Root, restores yang qi, disperses pudendal coldness, expels cold phlegm, and is a potent medicine for unblocking the joints. For all diseases of true yang deficiency, with rising deficient fire, throat discomfort, inability to ingest food, and worsening with cold medicines, Aconite Lateral Root is the primary medicine for the life gate, capable of entering the cave to summon it, returning fire to its origin, thus the floating fire will naturally extinguish. For all conditions of yang deficiency and extreme yin, with no heat symptoms in the lungs and kidneys, taking it has the remarkable effect of reviving from death."
bubble_chart Usage and Dosage
Decoct 3-15g, preferably for 0.5-1 hour until there is no spicy or numbing sensation when tasted.
bubble_chart Cautions and Contraindications
This product is pungent, hot, and drying. It is contraindicated in cases of yin deficiency with yang hyperactivity and in pregnant women. It is incompatible with Pinellia, Trichosanthis Fruit, Fritillaria Bulb, Japanese Ampelopsis Root, and Common Bletilla Pseudobulb. Due to its toxicity, internal use requires proper processing of materia medica. Overdose or improper processing and decoction methods can lead to poisoning.
bubble_chart Modern Pharmacology
This product contains Aconite Mother Root alkaloids, hypoaconitine, talatisamine, aconitine A, aconitine B, racemic demethyl lindera alkaloids, and fuziline, among others.
- The decoction of Aconite Mother Root and Aconite Lateral Root has a significant cardiotonic effect. The prepared common monkshood daughter root has a stronger cardiotonic effect, and the longer it is decocted, the more pronounced the cardiotonic effect and the lower the toxicity. Its cardiotonic effect is closely related to the racemic demethyl lindera alkaloids it contains.
- It has a significant anti-inflammatory effect on formaldehyde-induced and egg white-induced joint swelling.
- The hypoaconitine and protoaconitine it contains have analgesic and sedative effects.
- It has an anti-myocardial ischemia and hypoxia effect.
- It has an excitatory effect on the pituitary-adrenal cortex system.
- It promotes blood coagulation.
- The aconitine it contains is toxic. In cases of poisoning, symptoms such as slowed heart rate, conduction block, ventricular extrasystole or ventricular tachycardia, and ventricular fibrillation may occur. In severe cases, convulsions, unconsciousness, and even death may occur.