In 1232 A.D., the Mongolian army divided into three groups and went south to attack gold. Tuo Lei, the coach of the West Route Army (Guo Jing's ally brother in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes") wiped out 150,000 main forces of the Jin Army in Sanfeng Mountain, Yuzhou, Henan Province, and then successfully joined forces with the Wo Kuotai Division of the Central Route Army. On March 22 of the lunar calendar, the Mongolian army besieged Bianjing, the capital of the Kingdom of Jin (now Kaifeng, Henan).
Since the rise of Genghis Khan, Mongolia has repeatedly committed crimes in the south. The Jin army fought against the Mongolian army, and they were almost defeated repeatedly, so they were forced to move the capital to Bianjing for peace. But this time when they went south to sweep, the Mongolian iron cavalry aiming to destroy the gold, surrounded the city of Bianjing again, and the kingdom of Jin reached a critical moment of life and death.
Jin Aizong made the final struggle. He gathered all the families of soldiers and civilians outside the city, refugees fleeing from Nandu, and soldiers and civilians from surrounding states and counties into the city, and concentrated all his strength to make the last fight.
After 16 days and nights of fierce fighting, the two sides suffered countless casualties. Finally, the Mongolian army had to withdraw because they could not attack for a long time. The Jin soldiers successfully defended the city. The city of Bianjing announced the lifting of the ban, and the tired and hungry soldiers and people went out of the city to collect supplies.
Suddenly, a plague broke out in Bianjing. According to official history records: "The great epidemic in Bianjing, every 50 days, more than 900,000 people died from various gates, and there are not many people who were poor and could not be buried." There are more than 900,000 coffins. If counting the poor who cannot be buried, the total number is estimated to be at least one million.
What were the symptoms of the patient at that time? I checked a lot of historical data, and there are generally three types of symptoms:
Fever and fear of cold, cough with phlegm, and constipation.
For patients with fever and fear of cold, doctors use the method of removing the surface, and the specific prescription is unknown.
For patients with cough and phlegm, doctors use the method of warming phlegm and drinking. Historical materials mention Pinellia and Nanxing, but the specific prescriptions are unknown.
For patients with constipation, it is clearly mentioned in historical materials that some doctors used Chengqi decoction, while others used croton.
The reactions of patients after taking the medicine are clearly recorded: some patients developed chest knots, and some patients developed jaundice. Doctors treated with Xianxiong Decoction or Yinchen Decoction, but all the patients died.
"I was in Daliang. From what I saw with my own eyes, some expressed it, some pushed it with croton, and some took it with Chengqi decoction. Then it became constricted and yellowed in the breast, and then it was treated with Xianxiong decoction, pills and Yinchen decoction. Below, there will be no one who will die." - Li Dongyuan
Li Dongyuan said: The Bianliang plague was not a "typhoid fever", but a mass internal injury caused by "improper diet and labor injuries". During the siege of the city, "the day was hungry and the night was full, the daily life was constant, and the cold and temperature lost their homes." After the siege was relieved, people ate something, and people got sick because of "overeating". The symptoms of this disease were similar to typhoid fever, but it was not typhoid fever. Quack doctors made mistakes in medicine and cured people to death.
According to historical records (Dr. Luo Dalun once said), doctors in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties did not analyze the pathogenesis of patients when treating diseases. , according to the description in the patient's symptom control book to test the prescription. If this prescription is invalid, replace it with another prescription, and try each prescription one by one. According to the current words, it is "symptomatic medicine" rather than syndrome differentiation and treatment. The Japanese Hanfang School "perfectly" inherited their traditions, adopted the principle of "abolishing medicine and saving medicine", and prescribed according to the so-called "prescription-symptom correspondence" method, rather than the "prescription-symptom correspondence" of real Chinese medicine, that is, the prescription The indication type corresponds to the pathogenesis and syndrome type of the patient.
At that time, the patient's fever and fear of cold were not caused by external factors, but fever due to spleen deficiency or blood deficiency (injured people). Fever is caused by yin fire, and spleen deficiency and Wei Qi are afraid of cold. The treatment should be sweet and warm to remove heat, replenish qi and solidify the surface. If you use the method of removing the exterior, it will hurt the spleen and stomach even more.
Fever due to blood deficiency is caused by external excess of floating yang. Symptoms include fever, sweating, thirst, and floating pulse. If you look up prescriptions mechanically according to the book, it is easy to prescribe Baihu soup or Baihu plus ginseng soup. Li Dongyuan said: "Blood deficiency and fever, the syndrome is like a white tiger, and if you take Baihu decoction by mistake, you will die."
Cough with phlegm is caused by deficiency of the spleen. The spleen and lungs belong to the Taiyin meridian. The phlegm fluid rises upwards, so cough with phlegm should be treated by warming and tonifying the spleen, and taking it slowly. Qi of the spleen and stomach.
Difficulty in defecation is due to deficiency of the spleen and weakness in propulsion, and it is often seen with fever. The treatment should be tonify the spleen and moisten the intestines. If you use Chengqi soup or croton to attack, it will hurt your temper even more.
The doctor treated the patient indiscriminately, and treated the patient with chest and abdomen pain or jaundice. This kind of chest and abdomen pain is not the chest knot syndrome in "Treatise on Febrile Diseases", but the deficiency of both qi and yin caused by indiscriminate sweating, and the patient died after being attacked with Xianxiong decoction. Jaundice is not the jaundice in "Treatise on Febrile Diseases", but the earthy overflow caused by severe injury to the spleen and stomach, and the patient died after being attacked with Yinchen Decoction.
Li Dongyuan was in the city of Bianjing at that time, and was trapped by the Yuan army for 16 days. He also witnessed the death of nearly a million people who were wrongly treated. , but doctors simply prescribe according to the corresponding provisions of the patient's symptoms, without analyzing the mechanism of the disease, and do not reflect after the death, and still superstitiously believe in "prescriptions and symptoms". Li Dongyuan was very resentful of such a phenomenon of indiscriminate use of classic prescriptions without understanding, so he wrote the book "Distinguishing Confusion from Internal and External Injuries", criticizing this behavior of blindly "prescribing the right medicine" for not understanding the nature of the disease.
This large-scale mistreatment incident was known as the "Renchen Medicine Disaster" in history. Since then, the Jingfang faction began to go downhill, and the Shifang faction began to dominate. The emergence of the Jin and Yuan four accelerated this process. By the time of Zhang Jingyue in the Ming Dynasty, syndrome differentiation and treatment based on the patient's pathogenesis had been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and became the standard for qualified Chinese medicine practitioners.
In recent years, more and more people are learning classic prescriptions, which is a good thing. I myself have spent a lot of time and energy on classic prescriptions. However, many people do not seek deep understanding when using classic prescriptions, do not analyze the pathogenesis and syndrome types of patients, and use prescriptions mechanically according to the provisions and symptoms. Isn't it necessary to repeat the pitfalls that the ancients walked through? Isn't the lesson from 800 years ago not tragic enough? Later generations mourned for it but did not learn from it, and it also made future generations mourn for future generations again.
"The dialectic is the tip of all dialectics." This sentence is absolutely correct. But "correspondence between prescription and syndrome" is not "correspondence between prescription and syndrome". "Syndrome" is not "disease", don't confuse the meaning of the sages. According to the map, the car will overturn sooner or later.
