The lifting, lowering, floating and sinking of medicinal herbs are generally based upon their natures, flavors and qualities. Generally speaking, Chinese medicinal herbs pungent and sweet in flavor, warm and heat in nature are mostly lifting and floating in their actions while those bitter, sour and salty in flavor, and cold or cool in nature are mostly sinking and lowering in their actions. Chinese medicinal herbs of flowers, leaves, and branches, etc., which are light in property are mostly lifting and floating in their actions while those of fruits, seeds, and minerals, etc., which are heavy in property are mostly sinking and lowering. But there is an additional small number of Chinese medicinal herbs, for example, Houpo ( Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis ), a bark kind, pungent, bitter and warm in its flavor and nature can lower qi and relieve dyspnea. Xuanfuhua ( Flos Inulae), a flower kind, can lower qi and Chuanxiong (Rhizoma Chuanxiong), a root kind, can move in upper direction even to the head and eyes and yet in descending direction to uterus.
Besides, the lifting, lowering, floating and sinking actions of medicinal herbs may be affected by some medicinal processing or medicinal combination. For instance, the sinking or lowering medicinal herbs can turn into the lifting or floating ones when they are stir-baked with wine; in the same way, the lifting or floating herbs will turn into the sinking or lowering ones, which enter the kidney when they are stir-baked with a salt solution, and when they are used in combination with a variety of strong sinking or lowering herbs, their lifting or floating actions are changed into obscurity.
