Knowledge Base/Herbs/Gaoliangjiang (Lesser Galangal)
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温里药 · Interior-warming

Gaoliangjiang (Lesser Galangal) gāo liáng jiāng · 高良姜

Alpinia officinarum (rhizome)

Nature and flavour. Pungent, hot; Spleen and Stomach systems.

Grouped with the herbs that warm the stomach, stop vomiting and disperse cold to ease pain. It is the hotter of the ginger-family rhizomes used in the materia medica — hotter than fresh ginger, and the texts treat it as the one for cold in the stomach rather than for the exterior. The same rhizome is a seasoning in Southeast Asian cooking, under the name galangal. The traditional uses are categories recorded in the literature and are not established by modern research.

性味归经。辛，热；归脾、胃经。

传统上列入温胃止呕、散寒止痛一类。在本草所用的姜科根茎里，它的性最热，较生姜为甚；文献以其主胃中之寒，而不用于解表。同一根茎在东南亚烹饪中即「良姜/南姜」一味。以上为文献所载的用法归类，未经现代研究证实。

Classical category · no formulas, no dosages, no herb-drug combinations are given.
Safety. The practical confusion is with the other gingers: this is Alpinia officinarum, not the fresh sheng jiang or dried gan jiang of the kitchen, and not the greater galangal (Alpinia galanga) used in Thai cooking, though the three are cooked with in similar ways. Hot and drying, it is classically avoided where there is heat, where Yin is depleted, or where there is stomach pain of the burning kind rather than the cold kind — a distinction a reader cannot reliably make about themselves, which is the reason to ask rather than to guess. Safety in pregnancy is not established. No amount is given here.

实际使用中最易混淆的是其他「姜」：本品味 Alpinia officinarum，既不是厨房里的生姜或干姜，也不是泰式烹饪所用的大高良姜（Alpinia galanga），尽管三者用法相似。性热而燥，热证、阴虚者传统上不宜；胃痛属灼热一类而非喜温喜按一类者亦不宜——而这正是读者无法可靠自我判断的分别，故应求问而不是猜。孕期的安全性未确立。本条不列用量。

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