Insights and Updates

Elderly people and chronic patients often develop habitual constipation, which lasts a long time, recurs repeatedly, and lingers hard to heal. For such constipated patients, using strong laxatives is inappropriate. Treating such patients must balance supplementing deficiency with purgation; when using laxatives, mild laxatives should…

Xianchan Tablets is a commonly used antitumor Chinese patent medicine, listed in the Newly Compiled National Chinese Patent Medicines. Each tablet (weighing 0.25 g) contains Maqianzi powder (nux vomica) 50 mg, Chansu (toad venom) 10 mg, Buguzhi (psoralea) 0.17 g, Banxia (processed Pinellia) 50 mg,…

Hyperthyroidism (hyperthyreosis) belongs in TCM to the pattern of yin deficiency with internal heat. This disease is caused by excessive production of thyroid hormone. Hyperthyroid patients have hypermetabolism and increased systemic excitability; clinically they show palpitations, hand tremor, a thickened neck, exophthalmos, irritability, increased eating…

“Outside Gusu City lies Hanshan Temple; at midnight its bell reaches the traveler's boat.” In that era with little noise, in the dead of night the ancient, melodious bell rung by the early-rising monks of Hanshan Temple, piercing the heavens and reaching the ears of…

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the rice in the western suburbs gradually turned golden. Walking along the field ridges, breathing the familiar scent of straw, and in the evening watching the distant scattered lights and the starry sky by the paddy fields, I felt I was…

Yesterday, reading a medical book, I came across a case in the Du Wenxiao Yi'an (Medical Cases of Du Wenxiao) in which Dr. Du Wenxiao treated a high-risk hypertension patient. The patient, Yan, 51 years old, had had hypertension for over 10 years. Four days…

Wang, female, 75 years old, from Chengde, Hebei Province. On May 18, 2021, examination at the Affiliated Hospital of Chengde Medical College, Hebei, found suspicious pulmonary lesions (CT examination No. 810829): patchy opacities in the right upper lobe, with ill-defined, spiculated margins, traversing vessels, internal…

The late veteran TCM physician Li Jifang of Jiading, Shanghai, had an ancestral “Xiaoyan Gao” (Nodule-Dissolving Paste), said to have been purchased by his ancestors for a hundred taels of gold. It treats with excellent effect yang-away (yin-pattern) scrofula (luoli, e.g., lymph node tuberculosis and…

In our building there is a middle-aged man. I still do not know whether he is older or younger than me—he looks a bit older, but a person's appearance does not always match his actual age; perhaps he only looks old because of illness. His…

Shushe, also called Laomu Jun, Chise Laomu Jun, Bianzhi, Fengshuzhi, Muerduo, and Mulingzhi, is the fruiting body of the Polyporaceae Ganoderma fungus Ganoderma applanatum (Pers. ex Wallr.) Pat., which grows on the trunks of various broadleaf trees. Folk practice commonly uses the specimen growing on…