People often experience minor illnesses when eating grains and miscellaneous grains, such as sore throat. Traditional Chinese medicine often uses purple perilla leaf to treat sore throat. Purple perilla leaf has the effects of cooling blood, contracting and stopping bleeding, dispersing stasis, detoxifying, and reducing swelling!
[Methods of treating sore throat with purple perilla leaf]
Take one or two fresh purple perilla leaves. Wash them, add two bowls of water, boil until one bowl remains, and drink it. You can also boil it as tea and drink it regularly. (From "Folk Medicinal Herbs in Southern Fujian")
1. Cooling blood and stopping bleeding
Purple perilla leaf has a bitter and astringent taste and a cooling nature. It enters the liver meridian and has the function of cooling blood and contracting to stop bleeding. It is suitable for bleeding diseases caused by heat entering the blood division and causing excessive blood flow, such as epistaxis, hemoptysis, hematemesis, hematochezia, and menorrhagia. It can also be used for external bleeding. It can be used alone or in combination with other hemostatic drugs.
For epistaxis, it can be used in combination with thistle and bletilla; for hematuria and blood stranguria, it can be used in combination with dwarf thistle and white grass root; for hematochezia and hemorrhoids bleeding, it can be used in combination with Chinese burnet and pagoda tree flower; for external bleeding, it can be applied by crushing or grinding, or soaked in purple perilla leaf and covered with gauze to compress the affected area.
2. Detoxifying and reducing swelling
Purple perilla leaf has a bitter and cooling nature. It enters the lung and stomach meridians. It can clear heat, detoxify, disperse stasis, and reduce swelling. It is suitable for diseases with stagnant heat and toxins, such as painful and swollen ulcers and burns caused by fire or hot water. The powdered purple perilla leaf can be sprinkled on the affected area, or the decoction can be used to soak gauze for external application. For hot and toxic ulcers, fresh purple perilla leaves can be used alone as a poultice, and the decoction can also be taken internally. It can also be used in combination with other heat-clearing and detoxifying drugs.
[The original plant morphology of purple perilla leaf]
Purple perilla leaf is a shrub or small tree with young branches covered with gray-white long hairs. The leaves are opposite, long elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate; the upper surface has short soft hairs, and the lower surface is densely covered with gray-white hairs and has indistinct golden yellow glandular dots. The umbel inflorescence branches 5-7 times, and the total peduncle is 2-4 cm long. The calyx has 4 toothed lobes and is covered with star-shaped soft hairs. The corolla is purple, tubular, with a 4-lobed apex and slightly covered with fine hairs. There are 4 stamens and a superior ovary with 4 chambers. The purple perilla leaf is a drupe-like achene, small and spherical, with glandular dots and turning purple-red when ripe. It flowers in summer.
[Treating sore throat with repeated gargling of concentrated saltwater]
Although this method is applied externally, its effect is outstanding and simple to perform. Prepare a cup of water and add an appropriate amount of table salt, then stir in boiling water. Let it cool for a while, you can pour it into a large bowl and pour it back and forth to accelerate cooling.
Although it is a diluted saltwater, the concentration is higher than normal drinking water, and the taste will be salty. You don't need to drink it, just gargle when the water temperature is not too hot. Wait until the water temperature is suitable, take a mouthful in your mouth, and gargle back and forth, then spit it out. Repeat with a new mouthful, and tilt your head back to let the saltwater come into contact with the throat.
If you can repeat gargling every 10 minutes, 6-10 times a day, it is very effective.
