Modern medicine calls urticaria “out of cold eyes” in Hakka. “Eyes” means eyes. “Out of cold eyes” means that many eye-like bumps grow on the skin, and they come out when it’s cold. From this, we can understand that most of the urticaria in the past was caused by cold, that is, the blood circulation under the skin was blocked.
Since it is cold, then we need to use heat to sweat and dissipate the cold. So in the past, when people encountered urticaria, they would burn a pile of firewood. The fire was very big, and then the person with urticaria would roast next to the fire. The purpose was to make it sweat. After sweating, the blood circulation would be smooth, and the urticaria would be cured.
Later, the people thought, since sweating can cure the disease, why do we need to warm ourselves up? Can’t we use dried mugwort to boil water for bathing? So we boiled mugwort (there are a lot of them beside the fields in the countryside) and added some ginger when bathing. After bathing and sweating, we should not blow the wind, but cover ourselves with a quilt and lie on the bed. If the symptoms are mild, they will be cured in one bath.
Later, I found that the purpose of fumigating with moxa leaves is also to make the body hot, open the pores and sweat. After fumigating several times, it will gradually get better. You see, it is still the method we talked about last night, the method of dispersing the lungs and dispersing. Then we use Mahuang Decoction, Mahuang Guizhi half and half decoction to treat wind-cold type urticaria, isn’t it also dispersing sweat and relieving the symptoms? So the principle is the same, just the method is different.
In the past, people were called “cold-eyed”. I guess it was because they consumed less and had a simple diet. They could not eat so much meat. They could not be like today, where they have to pay attention to delicious food and spicy drinks. They just wanted to be full (because they were poor at that time). Naturally, they would not have urticaria caused by dry blood and itching caused by wind and heat. This also shows that diseases have kept pace with the times.
Then there was a child, who was about 10 years old at the time, and he had urticaria (called “chulengmu” by the Hakka people). He used moxa leaves to fumigate or wash (shower), but it didn’t work. He also roasted it with fire. He also found that after taking a bath with these, the urticaria became more severe and came at the slightest touch of wind. Finally, he took western medicine to control it, such as “Cetrimidex”, but he felt weak and wanted to sleep all the time.
The adults saw this and thought that eating this every day would damage the body, so they brought him to me for a checkup. I looked at the child and found that he was still healthy and strong. All the other methods didn’t work. It might be that he had a weak exterior (that is, he was too weak or too dispersing). I prescribed Sijunzi Decoction for the child, with Astragalus, Saposhnikovia, Hawthorn, Guya, Tangerine Peel, and Euryale! I remember that I prescribed three doses and told him that if it worked, he could take a few more doses.
As a result, the child was cured after taking three doses and the disease did not recur so often. He came back for three more doses. I told his father that it was effective, which meant that the child was physically weak. After the three doses, he should get a domestic chicken, add some red ginseng roots to it, and feed it to the child a few times. The disease would not recur in the future. His father did as he was told, and he was cured. The child is about 35 years old now.
So we can’t say that the common people’s methods are useless. Why can’t they cure it? It’s because they didn’t make a detailed diagnosis. This is what I said, first distinguish between cold and heat. Whether it’s urticaria, cold, or cough, no matter which one, first distinguish between cold and heat, then use medicine. After distinguishing between cold and heat, why can’t it be cured? That is to distinguish between deficiency and excess.
“Xu” means deficiency syndrome, which means weakness, and “Shi” means excess syndrome, which means strength. If the person is strong and his pulse is strong, then we can use the method of dispersing and relieving the symptoms (such as urticaria). If it is a deficiency syndrome (the pulse is weak and cannot be pressed hard), then we cannot release the symptoms, and we need to change the idea of tonifying. For example, in the case just mentioned, it can be cured by tonifying. This is the importance of syndrome differentiation.
As long as you know how to differentiate symptoms, even a common prescription can become a good one. If you don’t know how to differentiate symptoms, then the famous prescription is also a prescription. In modern terms, it is not suitable for the disease. So, is it suitable for the disease? The premise is to differentiate symptoms first, isn’t it?
