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Xi Gua Cui Yi西瓜翠衣

Citrulli Exocarpium · Watermelon Rind · Watermelon Peel · Xi Gua Pi

Herbs that Clear Heat 清热药

Overview

  • · — of, summer-heat.*

The thin pale-green layer scraped from the outside of a watermelon once the hard skin and the red flesh have been taken away — the 'kingfisher coat' of the old name. Sweet and cool, entering Heart, Stomach and Bladder.

Watermelon itself was nicknamed Tian Ran Bai Hu Tang, the natural Bai Hu Tang, for the way it puts out summer heat and thirst. The rind keeps that cooling quality but is lighter and drier than the flesh: it clears summer heat and quenches thirst without soaking the digestion in fluid, and it moves the heat out through the urine. It is one of the six light, mostly fresh ingredients of Qing Luo Yin 清络饮 in the Wen Bing Tiao Bian, the Qing dynasty's minimal prescription for the residue of a mild summer-heat illness.

Nature & Flavor

Sweet · Cool

Channels

Heart · Stomach · Bladder

Typical Dosage

9–30 g in decoction; the fresh rind is used in larger amounts than the dried. Also decocted as a summer drink and used as a cooling wash.
西瓜翠衣Photography for this entry is on its way.

Actions

4 core actions

  • Clears summer heat, relieves thirstThe wilted, overheated feeling of high summer: thirst, a hot flushed face, irritability, sweating, dark scanty urine, no appetite. Lighter than watermelon flesh, and therefore usable where a large volume of cold juicy fruit would sit badly.
  • Promotes urinationScanty dark urine and mild puffiness in hot weather. Clearing heat downward through the urine is how it works, which is why it appears in summer prescriptions alongside the light, aromatic herbs rather than the heavy cold ones.
  • The light summer prescription Qing Luo YinQing Luo Yin 清络饮 pairs it with fresh lotus leaf rim, fresh honeysuckle, fresh lablab flower, luffa peel and bamboo leaf tips — six ingredients, all light, most of them fresh, for the lingering headache and faint fever after a mild summer-heat illness has mostly passed. The formula is a lesson in how little is needed when the pathogen is slight.
  • Mouth sores and cankerRecorded for mouth ulcers and a sore, dry mouth from Stomach heat, taken as a decoction or used as a rinse.

In Formulas

Formulas containing Xi Gua Cui Yi

Indications & Clinical Uses

  • Summer heat with thirst, irritability, flushing and sweating
    - Scanty dark urine and mild swelling in hot weather
    - The tail end of a mild summer-heat illness, with faint fever and headache
    - Mouth ulcers and dry sore mouth from Stomach heat

Western Medical Keywords

Searchable condition terms

Heat exhaustionDehydrationOliguriaMouth ulcers

Contraindications

Cautions

  • Cool — avoid in cold and damp patterns. Not for someone with Spleen and Stomach cold-deficiency, loose stools, a pale tongue or cold limbs; it will make the digestion worse. The classical wording is direct:.
    - Not for a cold-type summer illness. Summer complaints are not all heat — an air-conditioned chill, a cold drink and a wet cold stomach produce a quite different picture that this herb makes worse.
    - Wash it properly. The rind is the part of the fruit that has been in contact with soil and with anything sprayed on the field. Scrub it, remove the hard outer skin, and prefer produce you can trace.
    - Heat exhaustion and heatstroke are medical emergencies. Confusion, a body temperature that will not come down, no sweating, collapse — these need emergency care and active cooling, not a decoction. This herb belongs to mild summer discomfort, not to a heat emergency.

Contraindicated in pregnancy: No specific prohibition, and a mild cooling food-herb is generally acceptable in a summer-heat pattern. It is cool, though, so avoid it in a pregnant woman who has loose stools or feels cold, and keep the amounts moderate. Leave the decision to the treating practitioner.

For licensed practitioners’ reference only

References

  1. Watermelon enters the Chinese materia medica through the Yuan and Ming 本草 literature; sources differ on which text first records it, and the rind is treated as a separate drug later, so no first source is asserted here.
    2. Wen Bing Tiao Bian《温病条辨》— Qing Luo Yin (classical source, public domain).
    3. Bensky, Clavey & Stöger. Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica, 3rd ed.
    4. Provincial 中药材标准 carry 西瓜翠衣 as 9–30 g; it is not a national pharmacopoeia monograph.

Professional reference notice. Entries are scholarly references for licensed TCM practitioners and students — not medical advice, and not a recommendation to self-prescribe. Chinese herbal formulas should be used under the guidance of a qualified practitioner. Content is an original editorial compilation by Cura x Cura, cross-checked against the cited references.