When the Blood is both lacking and slowing down

Dull or pale complexion, lips and nails losing their colour, marked dark circles, hands and feet often cold, a feeling of heaviness in the lower abdomen over the course of the cycle… In TCM, these signs may be associated with Blood Deficiency accompanied by Blood stasis. Tradition describes a circle here: insufficient Blood lacks the strength to circulate, so it lingers; lingering Blood stops new Blood from forming.

Tao Hong Si Wu Tang reads like a recipe: Tao for peach kernels (桃仁), Hong for safflower (红花), and Si Wu Tang, the “Four Substances Decoction”, the foundation formula for the Blood. The combination appears in the work of Wang Haogu (王好古), a physician of the Yuan, in the Yi Lei Yuan Rong (《医垒元戎》); its name was only fixed in 1742, under the Qing, by Wu Qian (吴谦), in the Yi Zong Jin Jian (《医宗金鉴》), the “Golden Mirror of Medicine”. The same core lies at the heart of Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang.

Nourishing so that the Blood can circulate

To break out of this circle, the formula works at both ends at once. Rehmannia and Chinese angelica provide the substance of the Blood; peach kernels and safflower, one of the most classic pairs in the pharmacopoeia, make room for new Blood. White peony holds on to what the others set in motion, and Sichuan lovage keeps the Blood from lingering again. Tradition calls this formula “moderate and steady”: enough to mobilise, not enough to exhaust.

Disperses Stasis: Peach kernels undo what has congealed, while safflower sets the Blood moving again in the vessels: one undoes, the other circulates.

Supports Blood circulation: According to tradition, Qi is the commander of the Blood: Sichuan lovage moves the Qi, and Chinese angelica, which nourishes while mobilising, carries the Blood along with it.

Gently nourishes the Blood: Rehmannia, in both its forms, and white peony nourish the Blood and the Yin, so that the formula mobilises without exhausting.