C14 Chinese medication chart: Excess wind etc.

Medication chart: Excess wind, middle Qi, excess cold and wind-damp syndromes. From a manuscript copy of Shanghan diandian jin shu (The Gold-dust Book of Cold Damage) dated '1st year of the Zhengyuan reign period of the Yuan dynasty' (1341), section entitled Shanghan diandian jin yongyao muji (Cold Damage Gold-Dust Repertory of Medication).

The text states: In case of stubborn fullness (jianman) and Qi blockage (qi bi) due to excess wind, one cannot get rid of the disease unless one uses [root of] Euphorbia Kansui (gansui), draba nemorosa (tingli), cassia bark (guan gui) or atractylodes macrocephala (baizhu).

In case of distress (fan), and muscular stiffness and tightness experienced when walking (liuzou juji), due to middle Qi manifesting, it cannot be cured except with notopterygium rhizome/root (qianghuo), ephedra (mahuang), Job's tears seed (yiyi ren) or monkshood (wutou).

In case of pain and oedema (fuzhong) due to excess cold, the illness will not abate unless aconite (fuzi), cassia bark (guan gui) or atractylodes macrocephala (baizhu) is used.

For wind-damp (fenghi) conditions, common prescriptions are ephedra and apricot decoction (mahuang xingzi tang), Job's tears and liquorice decoction (yiyi gancao tang), apricot kernel/almond decoction (xingren tang), cassia twig and aconite decoction (guizhi fuzi tang), liquorice and aconite decoction(gancao fuzi tang), stephania tetrandra and astragalus root decoction (fangji huangqi tang), atractylodes and aconite decoction (zhu fu tang), Detoxicating powder (baidu san), etc.

The table summarises the information given under 'Description of image content'