Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
Dendrobium (shihu), also called “ten-thousand-foot whiskers,” is one of the oldest medicinal health foods in Chinese history. It is recorded in China's earliest surviving treatise on materia medica, Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica (Shennong Bencao Jing): “Dendrobium is sweet and neutral. It governs damage to the middle, removes painful obstruction, sends qi downward, tonifies deficiency and exhaustion of the five zang organs and emaciation, and strengthens yin. Taken over a long time, it thickens the stomach and intestines, lightens the body, and prolongs life.” Famous physicians through the ages have also praised it as a top-grade medicine of high medicinal value.
Because dendrobium benefits the stomach and promotes fluids, nourishes yin and clears heat, it is used clinically mainly to treat fluid damage in febrile illness, dry mouth with irritable thirst, insufficient stomach yin, poor appetite and dry retching, lingering deficiency heat after illness, and yin deficiency with effulgent fire. Modern research has shown that dendrobium has some antipyretic and analgesic effects, promotes the secretion of gastric juice to aid digestion, boosts metabolism, and slows aging.
How to prepare it: The usual dose of dendrobium is 6–12 grams a day, doubled for the fresh herb (15–30 grams). It can be used alone or in compound formulas, made into a paste or into pills. If dendrobium is used alone, it works better decocted. Dendrobium can also be stewed in soup with meat, or cooked with white wood ear fungus, rice water, and the like, but it needs to cook somewhat longer than ordinary food.
Dendrobium bought on the market is mostly rolled. First cut the dried, rolled dendrobium into small pieces with scissors, soak them briefly, bring to a boil over high heat, then turn to low heat and decoct for about 10 minutes. In addition, when dendrobium is combined with other medicines, it is one to be decocted first.
A reminder: even people with no discomfort at all are not advised to take dendrobium over the long term. Dendrobium is slightly cold in nature, so it should be used with caution by people with deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach (those who secrete too little stomach acid), people in the early stage of febrile illness whose yin has not yet been damaged (who do not yet show fluid loss such as great thirst or heavy sweating), and people with damp-warm illness that has not yet turned dry (in damp-warm illness the dampness is hard to resolve, and excessive yin nourishment makes it harder to remove).
If you have a chronic illness or are taking other medications, consult a doctor or pharmacist first rather than taking it blindly on your own.