Ilex Rotunda Bark

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Clears heat and resolves toxin - Jiu Bi Ying is used for sore throat, hot dysentery, damp-heat skin eruptions, and swollen painful toxic lesions.
• Drains dampness and relieves pain - the bark is also used for damp-heat abdominal pain, joint pain, traumatic swelling, and painful obstruction with redness or inflammation.
• Cools the blood and reduces swelling - regional usage includes decoctions, washes, or poultices for boils, eczema, and bruised or inflamed tissue.

Secondary Actions

• This is an Ilex bark medicine, not a culinary illicium spice. The stub's English label was misleading and has been corrected so it does not collapse into star-anise style material.
• Jiu Bi Ying is much more regionally familiar in South China than in everyday export-dispensary TCM, so modern indexed evidence is still thinner than its local reputation might suggest.

Classic Formulas

• Jiu Bi Ying with Mu Xiang or Bai Tou Weng - regional dysentery strategy when damp-heat and toxic heat produce abdominal pain, tenesmus, or bloody stool.
• Jiu Bi Ying with Man Jing Zi or Ban Lan Gen - throat-swelling and wind-heat pairing logic for red painful throat with toxic heat.
• Topical washes or poultices with Ku Shen or Huang Bai - damp-heat skin strategy for eczema, sores, and moist inflamed lesions.

Classical References

• Official Chinese references describe Jiu Bi Ying as bitter and cold, entering the Lung, Stomach, Large Intestine, and Liver to clear heat, detoxify, dispel dampness, and relieve pain.
• The standard traditional indications include pharyngitis, dysentery, eczema, painful joints, and traumatic injury with swelling.
• Its strongest identity is as a heat-toxic and damp-heat bark rather than as a general tonic or harmonizing herb.