# Dong quai (Angelica sinensis)

*Danggui; *tang-kuei* of Stuart; *Angelica polymorpha* of Henry; *Angelica sinensis* (Oliv.) Diels; in pharmacy *Angelicae sinensis radix**

**Known today as.** The root of *Angelica sinensis*, of the family Apiaceae. Stuart, in 1911, describes the drug as brown, fleshy rootstocks branching into a mass of large, close, pliant rootlets “something like gentian root,” soft and whitish or yellow within, with “a very strong” odour like celery and a sweetish, warm, aromatic taste. Its plant was still disputed in his day, Faber taking it for the honeywort of North America and the Japanese for a *Ligusticum* or *Angelica*; he cites Henry that *Angelica polymorpha* was the source of the drug exported from Ichang and Hankow. The European Medicines Agency’s assessment report names ferulic acid and the phthalides of the essential oil, Z-ligustilide chief among them, as the constituents that seem most important.

Kind: Plant

> **Caution.** The assessment report finds that the root contains furocoumarins, among them bergapten, which make the skin sensitive to light and which in the presence of ultraviolet light is probably carcinogenic in humans, and the essential oil contains safrole and isosafrole; none of these has been measured in the root. Genotoxic effects, it notes, cannot be detected by pharmacovigilance or long use.

## What was it used for?

A medicine for women. The drug, Stuart writes, “is held in very high repute among the Chinese” and ranks next to liquorice in frequency of use in prescriptions; it was much used “in the treatment of the menstrual, chlorotic, and puerperal diseases of women,” and also for haemorrhages of all kinds, colds, fluxes, indigestion, and ague.

## What does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee declined to adopt a monograph on the root (public statement of 2013). It found no medicinal use of single-ingredient products in Europe after 1946, many products having appeared only as food supplements, and so no thirty years of traditional use with fifteen in the European Union, although the Chinese Pharmacopoeia showed long use in China; it also judged the indications unsuitable for use without medical supervision and found preliminary evidence of toxicological concern in the root’s chemistry. Its assessment report thought the antispasmodic effect of the oil’s phthalides might explain the use in painful periods, but found no data on clinical safety.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **ferulic acid**: with the phthalides, the constituents that seem most important
- **Z-ligustilide**: chief of the phthalides of the essential oil
- **bergapten**: a furocoumarin; makes the skin sensitive to light
- **safrole**: in the essential oil, with isosafrole

**Mechanism.** The assessment report thought the antispasmodic effect of the oil’s phthalides might explain the use in painful periods.

**Standing.** There is no European monograph: the European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee declined to adopt one (public statement of 2013).

## What did the older authorities say?

**Stuart, *Chinese Materia Medica* (1911).** Its other names, *shan-ch‘in* and *pai-ch‘in*, mean ‘mountain’ or ‘white’ celery, and Siebold says it is eaten like celery in Japan. Its name, Stuart reports, was said to come from its asserted power to make a woman ‘revert’ to her husband.

## Sources

- Stuart, G. A. (1911). *Chinese Materia Medica: Vegetable Kingdom*, “Tang-kuei.” Internet Archive, chinesemateriame00stuauoft.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Public statement on Angelicae sinensis radix (Angelica sinensis root)*. EMA/HMPC/681574/2012, 9 July 2013.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Angelicae sinensis radix*. EMA/HMPC/614586/2012, 9 July 2013.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Public statement on Angelicae sinensis radix (Angelica sinensis root)*. EMA/HMPC/681574/2012, 9 July 2013.
- European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Angelicae sinensis radix*. EMA/HMPC/614586/2012, 9 July 2013.

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*Dong quai.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/dong-quai

Historical description, not medical advice.