[Chinese Medicine] learning experience(60) Lily Rehmannia Soup

The notes I compiled are based on the textbook "Prescriptions" of the University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and some prescriptions that I think are good. The prescriptions written are all my personal experience, and the analysis methods are mainly based on the six meridians and the viscera. I am not a medical professional, studying medicine is purely a hobby. It is normal if there are mistakes in the text.

(60) Lily Rehmannia Soup
[Source] "Synopsis of the Golden Chamber"

【Category】Qingxu hot medicine

【Composition】Seven pieces of lily, one liter of rehmannia glutinosa.

[Usage] Wash the lilies with water, soak them overnight, remove the water when the white foam comes out, add two liters of spring water, decoct one liter, remove the dregs, add rehmannia root juice, decoct one liter of Wuhe, divide the temperature and then take. If you are sick, don't take it more.

[Function] nourishing yin and clearing away heat.

There is no such prescription in the college textbook "Prescriptions", and I wrote such a note because I think this prescription is very good and meaningful. This is also the 60th note of "Maomao's Learning Experience in Reading Prescriptions", and the number 60 is valued in traditional Chinese culture. I left this number for this prescription, which also shows its importance in my mind.

Baihe Dihuang Decoction comes from "Synopsis of the Golden Chamber·Treatment of Lily and Fox Confused Yin and Yang Poison Syndrome", which is a special prescription for treating a kind of "Lily Disease". In fact, there are a series of prescriptions for treating lily disease, and Baihe Dihuang Decoction is only one of them, which is used to treat the initial form of lily disease, and the rest are used to treat the changes and concurrent syndromes of lily disease.

What is lily disease? One is said to be the disease with lily as the main medicine, and the other is said to be the disease caused by one case of Baimai. Personally, I think it is a bit far-fetched to say that all pulses are one, so I agree with the former.

The original text of "Synopsis of the Golden Chamber" describes lily disease like this:

For lily patients, there is one case of Baimai, and all the diseases are caused by it. Want to eat but can't eat, often silent, want to lie down but can't lie down, want to do things but can't do things, when eating or drinking is delicious, or when you don't smell the smell of food, it's like cold but not cold, like hot but not hot, bitter mouth, red urine, all kinds of medicine can't cure it, and the vomiting is severe when you get the medicine.

The symptom description in this paragraph translates into modern Chinese roughly as follows: the patient wants to eat, but after the food is brought, he doesn’t want to eat anymore. Want to sleep, but can't fall back to sleep after lying down. I wanted to go out for a walk, but suddenly I didn't want to go out after getting dressed. Stay silent or mutter to yourself all day. Sometimes I am afraid of cold, sometimes I am afraid of heat, but my body temperature is normal. The same food is sometimes said to be the most delicious food in the world, and sometimes it is said to be stinky and unpalatable, and it is useless except for torture to extract confessions. In addition, patients also have symptoms of trance, and often say that they have seen gods, ghosts, demons, demons and so on. For a while, he said that he had lost two gold bars, and for a while, he said that his second uncle, who had passed away for a long time, came to visit yesterday. Occasionally, there are ghosts hitting the wall, ghosts pressing the bed and other experiences. The patient always feels that he is at a disadvantage, wronged, bullied, there is no good person in the world, and the world treats him so unfairly. I always suspect that someone is hostile to me, intends to take advantage of me, intends to trip me secretly, and has an obvious tendency of "paranoia of persecution". Even the idea of murder or suicide often exists, as if possessed by a resentful ghost.

Faced with such patients, doctors generally use psychotropic drugs to maintain them for life. Faced with such patients, family members usually find some top immortals and great gods to draw amulets to exorcise evil spirits and chant mantras to catch ghosts. Cao Yingfu said: "The ghosts are summoned and the witches sing the ghost songs of the autumn graves, and the reef altars are set up, and the Taoists are good at commanding the majesty. The merits of curing the disease have not been recovered, and the room is like a hanging chime."

What kind of disease is this? This is neurosis. There was a functional disorder in the nervous system, which made the patient's six senses abnormal and had hallucinations. At the same time, it affects the psychological emotions of patients, leading to unreasonable behaviors in patients.

Six senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, consciousness.

Both males and females have the probability of suffering from lily disease, but the probability of female suffering from this disease is significantly higher than that of males. Especially in the period of one month to one year after giving birth, women have a very high probability of suffering from lily disease. It can even be said that more than 90% of puerpera have suffered from lily disease, and it has nothing to do with vaginal delivery and caesarean section. It's just that the severity of each person's illness is different, and the symptoms and reactions shown are also different. For those with severe symptoms, western medicine calls it "postpartum depression".

Lily disease is one of the causes of postpartum depression, and the two are intersecting, not equivalent.

Lily disease is often seen with bitter mouth, red urine, and a slight pulse, indicating that there is a pathogenesis of yin deficiency and hyperactivity of fire. Some people think it is a syndrome of heart yin deficiency, some people think it is a syndrome of lung yin deficiency, and I personally think it is a disease of both the heart and lungs at the same time, with yin deficiency as the main contradiction and fire excess as the secondary contradiction. The liver governs the soul, the lung governs the soul, the liver governs anger, and the lung governs resentment. Patients with lily disease often have the performance of excessive resentment.

There are only two herbs in the prescription: seven lilies and one liter of rehmannia. One liter of Rehmannia glutinosa is relatively easy to convert. According to the unearthed Eastern Han Dynasty utensils, it is equivalent to 200 milliliters today. However, it seems troublesome to extract 200ml of Rehmannia glutinosa juice first when decocting the medicine, so most of the modern methods adopt the method of weighing and decocting together.

I have consulted some medical records of Baihe Dihuang Decoction. The dosage of these two medicines used by doctors is roughly 15 grams to 30 grams of both Lily and Dihuang, but not necessarily 1:1. It may be a little more Lily or a little more Rehmannia. Clinically, it needs to be adjusted according to the symptoms of the patient.

Lily enters the heart and lung meridian, the main effect is to nourish yin and moisten the lungs, clear the heart and calm the nerves. It is the king medicine for lily disease, and according to Western medicine, it is used to regulate the nerves. Shengdi enters the Heart, Liver and Kidney Meridian, and its main function is to nourish yin and clear away heat. The two medicines work together to clear away heat and treat the symptoms, nourish yin and treat the root cause.

Finally, I want to emphasize one point: Baihe Dihuang Decoction is not a special prescription for treating lily disease, it is a prescription for treating heart and lung yin deficiency and hyperactivity of fire. It just so happens that most lily diseases belong to this syndrome type, and the two also belong to the intersection relationship. If you want to know more about lily disease, please refer to "Synopsis of the Golden Chamber".