It's the beginning of autumn, and in the morning and evening, the cool wind blows on the body, which is very comfortable. Autumn is the most beautiful season. The air is crisp, the road seems to become wider, and the distant mountains become clear, which makes people think of some very distant things.
The main qi in autumn is dryness, originally this is a normal climate change, but if it is too much or we are not used to it, it will become something that hurts us. We call it evil qi. Chinese medicine divides these external evil qi into The six types are wind, cold, heat, dampness, dryness, and fire (heat), which are called six evils, and "excessive" means too much.
Dryness evil, one of the six evils, is an important pathogenic factor of exogenous pathogenic factors. To find the root of this dryness evil name, you have to read the "Huangdi Neijing". "Dryness wins dryness", but the nineteen articles on the pathogenesis of "Suwen Zhizhenyao Dalun" only did not mention dryness. I don't know why, and we have no way to understand it now, so later generations pay attention to dryness. Not enough, later, in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, Liu Wansu, one of the four masters of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, wrote "Suwen Xuanji Yuanbing Shishi", which recorded: "All astringent and dry ... all belong to dryness", so that the dryness It is classified as one of the six qi.
Physicians of past dynasties have different opinions on the onset season of dryness, and they can be summed up in two ways. One thinks that it is the dominant qi in autumn, which mainly appears in autumn, and the other thinks that dryness can appear in every season. In fact, I personally think that it is right that it will appear in every season. This is in line with the objective situation. Our Chinese medicine is never rigid and adapts to the situation. If it suddenly becomes warmer in winter and many heat syndromes appear, we will not necessarily think that it is caused by cold evil. , because the climate is changing at any time, you can't wait for the sword.
Therefore, this dryness is mainly in autumn, so we use this autumn as an example, because the dryness is too prominent in autumn, but we can’t think that there will be no other seasons, everyone must understand this truth.
Autumn is easy to be hurt by dryness and evil. This is proposed by Mr. Yu Jiayan, who we are familiar with. I wrote the story of Mr. Yu Jiayan in the book "Ancient Chinese Medicine-Legend of Seven Famous Doctors". He is a strange man. He is also a good friend of Qian Qianyi.
Yu Jiayan saw that "The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic" did not have a category of dryness, and there were basically no anti-dryness medicines in the ancient prescriptions. He thought, let's not base everything on the "Huangdi Internal Classic". When moving the bamboo slips or silk books of the "Huangdi Neijing", maybe a few of them were lost, so according to the clinical practice, "autumn hurts in dampness" was changed to "autumn hurts in dryness", and since then it proposed "the general idea". It is said that spring hurts the wind, summer hurts the heat, long summer hurts the dampness, autumn hurts the dryness, and winter hurts the cold" ("Medical Law · Shang Zao Gate · Autumn Dryness") After this statement, later generations of doctors all admired it. , Since then, dry evil has been valued in Chinese medicine.
For example, Ye Tianshi, one of the four masters of febrile disease, said in the dry chapter of "Clinical Guide to Medical Records": "Summer heat and autumn dryness cause injuries, all due to insufficient yin." Wang Mengying, another of the four major masters of febrile disease, wrote in " Re-editing the Popular Treatise on Febrile Diseases says in the section on Autumn Dryness and Febrile Diseases: "Autumn is deep and cool at the beginning, and the west wind is chilling. Those who feel it are often sick and wind-dry. More sickness and warm dryness, this is dry heat."
Wang Mengying is such a smart person. In fact, I want to tell you that there are two types of dryness, cool dryness and warm dryness. In the past, our textbooks always said that early autumn is warm and dry, and late autumn is cool and dry. When I was studying, I felt that the teaching materials were wrong. Once you get used to the cold, at this time, if you bask in the sun again, you will be warm and dry; when winter is approaching and the weather gets cooler, you will be cool and dry again. It is not simply two stages, but three stages of different levels. But this is contrary to the teaching materials. When I was studying, I always sang against the teaching materials. Later, I saw Wang Mengying’s exposition, and he analyzed it very clearly. "Autumn is deep and cool at the beginning". The "early autumn" in the north is the same. The focus of this statement is on the "early coolness". When the sky is just cold, what we tend to feel is dryness.
So, think when you read.
Some friends asked: Why do you talk about so many theories? Quickly tell us a few recipes!
In fact, to learn Chinese medicine, you must understand the theory. With the theory and understanding of evidence, the prescription can be effective. Otherwise, those prescriptions are dead prescriptions, and most of them are ineffective. This is why those famous doctors in ancient times were proficient in theory. It is systematic and comprehensive, so that people can prescribe prescriptions that will be effective, because these prescriptions are guided by theory.
So, why is autumn dry?
You can experience this for yourself. In summer, the sky is hot. The pores of our body are open and the sweat evaporates. As a result, in autumn, the cool wind comes immediately. You will understand that although the sun in autumn is also very hot, However, as long as you get into the shade, you will feel cool immediately.
In this way, when the cold wind hits, our body will know it immediately, so the sweat will be absorbed immediately, and the body fluid will go in, and it will not vent out. However, if it is restrained too much, it will make our body surface feel dry , The specific feeling is dry nostrils, dry throat, dry skin, etc.
So, why do symptoms occur?
We all know that these body fluids are part of our body's defense system, and many of our defense forces are transported by them, and even the body fluid itself is also involved in defense, such as our nasal cavity, the mucous membrane inside has a variety of foreign microorganisms. Function, the moistening of the mucous membrane is the function of the body fluid. If the body fluid is insufficient, the mucous membrane becomes dry, and it is easy for external pathogens to drive in.
Therefore, when our body is dry, it is easy to be attacked by external pathogens. This kind of invasion is caused by dryness. In Chinese medicine, we don’t care what the external pathogens are, we only grasp the cause of the disease, so , we collectively refer to this type of cause as dryness evil.
What about cold and warm dryness?
When mentioning dryness in the past, many people thought of nourishing body fluids, such as using rehmannia root, sand ginseng, Ophiopogon japonicus, Dendrobium, etc. However, they didn’t know that this could not be done for cool dryness. Cold dryness is caused by cold, and the root cause is not Insufficient body fluid, but the body fluid cannot be distributed throughout the body, so it is necessary to use warming medicines, and use Xintong products to regenerate the body fluid and let it circulate to the whole body normally.
This kind of situation is common in life. The day before yesterday, a friend consulted me. He just felt that his nasal cavity was dry, as if there was no obstruction in it, and he felt that the wind could drive straight in. He asked me what to do?
In general, for dryness, everyone thinks of nourishing body fluid medicine, but I think the weather is starting to get cold, and he should be cool and dry in early autumn, so I told him to boil water with perilla leaves, and then use this blister At the same time, he drank a little ginger soup. As a result, he told me that night that the dry state was relieved.
However, if we adapt to the coolness of autumn, then we will be warm and dry. The reason for the warm and dry weather is that there is plenty of sunshine in autumn, because a lot of moisture in autumn has converged, and the air permeability has become stronger. It is easy to have high and crisp autumn and cloudless conditions. At this time, the sun is particularly poisonous. If there is no rain for a long time , Qiuyang is used to expose, dryness and heat are combined, and the hair is warm and dry.
Warm dryness will really hurt people's body fluid. It will evaporate our body fluid, resulting in insufficient body fluid. Dryness has two characteristics, one is easy to damage body fluid, and the other is easy to damage lungs. Therefore, this kind of warm dryness In autumn, it often causes lesions of the lung meridian, such as cold, cough, dry cough with little phlegm, blood in the phlegm, and even wheezing and chest pain. Because the lungs and the large intestine are on the outside and inside, it can also cause problems such as dry stools.
The most frequent occurrence, according to the classification of modern medicine, is upper respiratory tract infection, which eventually even leads to pneumonia.
For the treatment of this situation, it is necessary to use the theory of febrile disease and the method of clearing away heat and relieving heat, but at the same time, it must be combined with nourishing body fluid products, such as raw land, crocodile, dendrobium, and sand ginseng. Body fluid can be replenished and the body can recover.
During this period, you can also use some diet therapy to regulate yourself. The diet therapy should be based on the basic principle of "nourishing yin and nourishing the lungs". You can eat more sesame seeds, walnuts, glutinous rice, honey, pears, sugar cane and other foods. Porridge can be used to benefit the stomach and promote body fluids, such as lily lotus seed porridge, white fungus rock sugar glutinous rice porridge, black sesame porridge, etc. There are a lot of information on these things to tell you how to do them, so I won't go into details.
Then in late autumn, when winter is approaching, the weather will be cooler. At this time, cool dryness reappears. This kind of dryness is closely combined with cold evil. The pathogenic characteristic of cold evil is retraction. Sweat cannot be conveyed to moisturize the skin on the body surface, so the performance of no sweat and dryness is seen. As it is said in "Mr. Yu's Medical Cases of Wuyuan: Hematemesis": "People know that winter water ice is cold, but they don't know that it is actually caused by dryness, but this dryness has not turned into heat."
If such problems occur at this time, it is necessary to start with dispelling the cold evil, and use warm and pungent medicines, so that the body's qi and blood can flow outwards, and the dry state will be relieved, which is roughly the same as the cool dryness in early autumn , but it will be a little heavier in terms of medication.
This is the end of Zaoxie’s chat with you. In fact, there is still a lot of content in it. I will have the opportunity to chat slowly in the future. I hope to introduce you to more basic theoretical knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine.
