Why did Emperor Huizong of Song use ice water to boil his medicine? There is a lot of knowledge about how to boil Chinese medicine.

One summer, Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty had damaged his spleen and stomach because he ate too much ice drinks. This made the imperial doctors very anxious. The imperial doctors believed that this was a symptom of cold attacking the middle burner, so they naturally asked for the classic Dali Zhongwan. But Emperor Huizong took it for several days in a row, but it didn't work. At this time, the famous folk doctor Yang Jie came to offer advice: "Your Majesty's illness is caused by eating too much ice. I beg you to use ice to decoct the medicine." Huizong followed his advice and he was cured.

Ice and water are the same substances from a chemical point of view, but as solvents for decocting medicine, they exhibit different effects. Why is that?

It turned out that Song Huizong's illness was caused by eating too much ice, which led to the accumulation of cold pathogen in the middle jiao spleen and stomach. Lizhong Pills warm the middle jiao and dispel cold, and the prescription is consistent with the symptoms, and the medicine is selected accurately. However, the symptoms are cold and the medicine is warm and dry, and the cold and hot are mutually exclusive (which can be understood as mutual exclusion), which will affect the efficacy. When decocting, ice water is used instead. The cold nature of ice can not only reduce the warm and dry nature of the group of medicines, but also serve as an adjuvant. The cold nature of ice water and the symptoms are of the same nature, eliminating the state of mutual rejection between the cold symptoms and the hot medicine, and thus the medicine cures the disease.

Generally speaking, Chinese medicine decoction includes decoction and powder. The heat, solvent and auxiliary materials in the decoction process will affect the medicinal properties and efficacy. What to use to decoct Chinese medicine - the choice of decoction solvent and auxiliary materials is indeed a matter of great importance.

In addition to Song Huizong's ice-fried Lizhong Pills, there are precedents in history of using solvents or auxiliary materials such as sugarcane juice, Mafeitang (boiling hot water), wine, and honey to decoct medicine.

Using cold solvents to decoct medicines can enhance the coldness of the medicines, or reduce the warmth of the medicines. Take sugar cane, which is commonly eaten, for example. Sugar cane is "sweet and cold in nature, can remove heat and moisten dryness, quench thirst and eliminate phlegm." The ancient recipe "Qufan Yangwei Decoction" uses its decoction instead of water to enhance the efficacy of the whole recipe in clearing heat, promoting fluid and moistening dryness, thus eliminating the heat syndrome in the middle jiao.

There is also a saying about using wine to decoct medicine. Wine is pungent and warm in nature, and can open up the meridians, clear blockages, warm the blood vessels, and disperse stagnation. In the "Golden Chamber", there is a red and blue flower wine for treating abdominal pain caused by blood stasis in women. Among them, safflower can promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. If it is decocted with wine alone, it can enhance the pungent taste of the whole prescription and double its effect of promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis and relieving pain. It should be noted that people who are allergic to alcohol and motor vehicle drivers should use it with caution.

Let's talk about honey. Honey can nourish the middle and replenish qi, moisturize dryness, relieve pain and detoxify, and can also be used as a solvent for decocting medicine. The "Golden Chamber" records: the Wutou Decoction for treating pain in the joints that cannot be bent or stretched is made by decocting Wutou with honey. The purpose is to take advantage of its detoxification function and alleviate the toxicity of Wutou; the second is to take advantage of the sweet and slow nature of honey to alleviate the urgency of Wutou, so that it can slowly play the role of dispelling cold and relieving pain, so as to eliminate deep cold and chronic cold.

The decoction method is crucial to the medicinal properties of traditional Chinese medicine, and the solvents and auxiliary materials used in decoction should be given more attention. In fact, there are many key factors in TCM treatment, but they have not attracted enough attention.

Next time before you take the medicine home from a Chinese medicine pharmacy, remember to ask the pharmacists if there are any precautions when decocting the medicine, so that your treatment is not delayed due to improper decocting methods.

Author: Sun Meng, Chief Pharmacist, Pharmacy Department, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital

Review expert: Li Bin, deputy director and pharmacist of the Pharmacy Department of Tianjin Medical University General Hospital