Glabrous Greenbrier Rhizome

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Eliminates toxic heat and resolves damp-toxin - Tu Fu Ling is classically used for syphilitic lesions, damp-hot sores, carbuncles, genital itching, and chronic skin disorders in which heat and dampness linger together.
• Promotes urination and drains damp turbidity - it is chosen when damp-heat causes cloudy urine, leukorrhea, painful dribbling, or lingering lower-burner congestion.
• Unblocks the channels and relieves painful obstruction - traditional use extends to mercury-related toxicity patterns, gout-like painful joints, swollen limbs, and chronic damp obstruction affecting the sinews and bones.

Secondary Actions

• Tu Fu Ling is unusually gentle for a detoxifying herb and often appears in relatively large doses when long-standing damp-toxic skin or joint patterns need steady clearing without excessive coldness.
• It should not be collapsed into either Ba Qia or Fu Ling: the name overlap confuses trade material, but the TCM job and botanical source are distinct.

Classic Formulas

• Tu Fu Ling with Bi Xie and Yi Yi Ren - a common pairing approach for cloudy urine, damp-heat, leukorrhea, and gout-like painful obstruction.
• Tu Fu Ling with Jin Yin Hua and Lian Qiao - used when toxic heat produces carbuncles, swollen sores, or damp-hot skin eruptions.
• Tu Fu Ling with Ku Shen and Bai Xian Pi - a damp-toxic skin pairing for chronic itching, eczema, discharge, or lower-body heat.

Classical References

• Me & Qi describes Tu Fu Ling as sweet, bland, and neutral, entering the Liver and Stomach to detoxify, eliminate dampness, and benefit the joints.
• Materia medica summaries tracing back to Ben Cao Gang Mu repeatedly emphasize sores, mercury-related toxicity, painful joints, and damp-heat in the lower body as signature indications.
• SOURCE NOTE: this record follows the accepted Smilax glabra identity used elsewhere in the repo and keeps it separate from Ba Qia and other Smilax rhizomes.