Scullcap herb is one of perennials, 15 to 50cm high, sparsely pubescent on rachis to glabrous. Roots are rather slender. Stems are usually cespitose, thinner, square-column-shaped, and with dark purple or brownish green surface. Leaves are usually opposite, with short petiole, most shrinking but triangular ovate or lanceolate after flatten, 1.5 to 3cm long, 0.5 to 1cm wide; blunt at front end, broadly cuneate at base, integrifolious or margin few unsharp obtusely dentate; upper surface dark green, and lower surface grayish green. Flowers are solitary in axils of upper branches and stem, calyxlobes blunt or rounder; corolla bilabiate, brownish yellow or light bluish violet, about 1.2cm long, and pubescent. Fruits are oblate and light brown. And it is nearly odorless and slightly bitter.

HERBAL FORMULAS RELATED WITH SKULLCAP HERB
Barbat skullcap contains alkaloid, flavonoids, sterides, phenols, and tannin. Confirmed by animal experiments, it has a certain inhibition to sarcoma 180, ehrlich ascites carcinoma, and cerebroma, etc. Japanese scholars ever conducted an experiment in vitro for screening of antitumor activity among 800 species. And the result revealed that scullcap had 100% inhibition ratio in vitro to JTc-26 oncocyte while 50% to normal cells. And institutes of traditional Chinese medicine have brought forward lots of proof through experiments and treatments clinically.

SkullCap Herb

(1). Gastric Cancer. It was reported that 182 intermediate and advancing cases had been treated with the combination pill mainly made of skullcap and heydyotis. The patients took them from 1 month to 10 years. The results showed that 46 cases cured basically (symptoms disappeared, canceration disappeared observed under gastroscope, and more than 3 years survived), 52 obviously effective, 45 effective, and 39 ineffective. Clinical effects confirmed that the longer time of taking medicine the better efficacy it had;

(2). Esophagus Cancer. There were reports that People's Hospital of Nanzhang County in Hubei provice treated 25 cases mainly by a compound prescription, which consists of Barbat skullcap, Pu Gong Ying (Dandelion), Huang Yao Zi (Dioscorea Bulbifera Tuber), Huang Lian (Coptis), Ban Xia (Pinellia), and Gua Lou (Trichosanthes Fruit). Among them, 9 cases were obviously effective (symptoms disappeared consciously, cancer cells disappeared by cytological examination, basal layer cell severe hyperplasia, cancer cell shrunk or destroyed, and local lesion disappeared observed by X-machine), 9 effective, 7 ineffective, and 3 dead, at a total effective rate of 60%;

(3). Liver Cancer. Reported by the Second Hospital of Jilin, 50 intermediate and advancing cases were treated mainly by Lian Hua Pian, comprised of skullcap, QI YE YI ZHI HUA (Paris Rhizome), Niu Huang (Cattle Gallstone), Shan Ci Gu (Cremastra), Tian Qi (Pseudoginseng Root), Wu Gong (Centipede), and E Zhu (Zedoaria Rhizome). The results showed that 9 cases cured basically, 8 obviously effective, and 14 effective, at a total effective rate of 62%.