Hearth Center Earth

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Warms the middle and stops vomiting - Zao Xin Tu is classically used for nausea, retching, and chronic vomiting when Stomach cold or middle-burner deficiency is the root pattern.
• Warms the intestines and stops diarrhea - it is chosen for chronic diarrhea and loose stools arising from Spleen-Stomach deficiency cold rather than from damp-heat or infectious excess.
• Warms blood and arrests bleeding - classical use extends to hematemesis, hemafecia, uterine bleeding, and other bleeding patterns in which cold and deficiency impair the middle burner's ability to hold blood.

Secondary Actions

• Zao Xin Tu is a mineral-earth medicine traditionally decocted in a cloth bag and used for its warming, astringing, and settling qualities rather than for aromatic movement or tonification.
• Its classical niche is narrow but distinctive: cold-type bleeding, cold-type vomiting, and weak digestive transport.

Classic Formulas

• Huang Tu Tang - the defining classical formula for bleeding due to Spleen deficiency cold.
• Traditional pregnancy-vomiting combinations pair Zao Xin Tu with Sheng Jiang, Zhu Ru, or Zi Su Geng when cold and rebellious Stomach Qi are both present.
• Cold-deficiency diarrhea combinations pair it with Bai Zhu, Gan Jiang, Sha Ren, or Ren Shen to stabilize the middle while stopping leakage.

Classical References

• Classical herbology presents Zao Xin Tu or Fu Long Gan as a hearth-derived earth that warms the middle, stops vomiting, and arrests bleeding.
• Its use depends on distinguishing cold-type bleeding from heat-type bleeding; the same herb is considered wrong when bleeding arises from Yin deficiency heat or replete heat.
• Older texts also note its external use for certain sores and blisters, but its main identity remains internal warming and astringing.