A Summer-Heat-Clearing and Fever-Reducing Formula: Zhuye Shigao Tang
Zhuye Shigao Tang comes from the "Shanghan Lun." The "Shanghan Lun" describes its indication as follows: "After cold damage has resolved, the patient is emaciated and deficient with scant qi, with counterflow qi and a desire to vomit; Zhuye Shigao Tang governs it." The original text is very brief. Judging from this passage in the "Shanghan Lun," Zhuye Shigao Tang suits patients in the late stage of febrile disease who are weak, short of breath and fatigued, and who have digestive reactions (counterflow qi with desire to vomit).
Later physicians summarized this indication as the pattern of "damage to both qi and fluids in the late stage of febrile disease." Common signs include hot body with sweating, fever, vexing thirst, vomiting, vacuity vexation and insomnia, a red tongue with scant coating, and a deficient rapid pulse. Today this formula is commonly used to treat epidemic hemorrhagic fever, heatstroke, cancer fever, summer fever in children, acute nephritis in children, intractable insomnia, epidemic encephalitis B, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, pneumonia sequelae, acute viral myocarditis, infective endocarditis, acute nephritis, acute urinary tract infection, intractable hiccups, and diabetes with dry cough and excessive drinking.
The original Zhuye Shigao Tang formula is: "Two handfuls of Zhuye (Lophatheri), one jin of Shigao (Gypsum), half sheng of Banxia (Pinelliae, washed), one sheng of Maimendong (Ophiopogonis), two liang of Renshen (Ginseng), two liang of Gancao (Glycyrrhizae), half jin of Jingmi (rice)." From this we can see that when Chinese medicine was used in the Han Dynasty, dosages were not uniformly measured by weight as today. Maimendong was measured in sheng, and Zhuye in handfuls.