Thunderball

Thunderball

　　Also known as Thunder Fruit or Bamboo Fungus. It belongs to the Basidiomycotina subphylum and is a type of polypore fungus. Its medicinal use was first recorded in the “Shennong’s Classic of Materia Medica.” It is distributed across most regions of Yunnan, commonly growing in bamboo forests, on bamboo roots or beneath bamboo stumps. It appears as an irregularly shaped sphere or lump, generally no more than 4 cm in diameter, and is brown, dark brown to black in color, with a white or grayish-white interior that hardens upon drying. It has a cold nature, bitter taste, and mild toxicity. Its active component, thunderballin, is a water-soluble proteolytic enzyme that can destroy the scolex of tapeworms, possessing both insecticidal and fever-reducing properties. Medications primarily formulated with thunderball can be used to treat parasitic diseases such as roundworms, pinworms, and tapeworms.