Licorice, plain and unremarkable, is seen in Zhongjingshu 158, "Treatise on Typhoid Fever" 70, "Jin Kui Yaolu" 88, is the most widely used and most frequent medicine in Zhongjing.
Licorice decoction can be found in Article 311 of the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever": "For those with less yin disease, two or three days, sore throat, can be used with licorice decoction." "Fang uses two taels of licorice, three liters of water, boils one and a half liters, delucates, warms Qihe, and serves two times a day.
The difference between prescription and medicine is that a single flavor is a medicine, and a compound is a prescription. This is only in the general sense, if understood at a deep level, then "the general function of the general curative of medicinal taste, no matter how much it is embellished, can only be said to be medicine;."Although the medicine is only a taste, but under the guidance of the rule of treatment, those who are treated by the evidence are all called prescriptions. ”
Therefore, the reason why medicine is medicine and the reason why prescription is prescription is not mainly in the amount of medicinal taste, but in the degree of medicine.
Zhongjing's licorice can be summarized as strong, producing, slow, and concordant.
Strong
The so-called strengthening effect of licorice refers to the compatibility of licorice with certain drugs, which can make its efficacy in a certain aspect more prominent, and be solidified and stabilized.
For example, the compatibility of licorice and cinnamon branches, when later commentators explained the meaning of their compatibility, they mostly used Xin Ganhua Yang to summarize. Guizhi is warm, and it originally has the effect of passing yang, what is the meaning of this word "hua"?It turns out that the cinnamon branch gets licorice, which not only strengthens its original yang effect, but also can keep this yang effect in a stable state.
This strengthened and solidified yang effect of cinnamon branches can be summarized into two forms:
One is divergent. In the antidote, cinnamon branch with licorice and sweet is divergent, the yang disperses the cold, the surface dispels the evil, and the extraterritorial wind and cold regardless of sweat or sweat.
Second, it is said to strengthen the heart and yang. Cinnamon branches are solidified and stabilized by licorice, and its temperature is strengthened by the effect of heart yang, and the heart is not strong, and the heart palpitations are restless. If the cinnamon branch is used alone without licorice as a support, although it still has the effect of warming yang, its aphrodisiac yang effect is difficult to highlight and unstable.
The 64th cloud in the treatise: "Excessive sweating, the person who crosses his hands and presumpties himself, palpitations in the heart, and wants to be pressed, the main one of the cinnamon branch licorice soup." "If there is no licorice in this recipe, then the effect of cinnamon branches is either scattered or biased, and it is difficult to stabilize the effect of strengthening the heart and yang.
On the prescriptions of strengthening the heart and yang, most of them are inseparable from the compatibility structure of cinnamon and sweetness, such as cinnamon branch plus cinnamon soup, Ling Guishu sweet soup, cinnamon branch to peony medicine plus Shu lacquer oyster keel to save the reverse soup, etc.
In the same way, in "Jin Kui Yaolu: Water and Qi Disease Pulse Syndrome and Treatment", licorice ephedra decoction treats "water", if four taels of ephedra are not two or two licorice solidification, it is difficult to achieve the purpose of treating water with stable sweating.
Peony with licorice, later summarized as bitter sweet yin or sour sweet yin.
Treatise on Typhoid Fever, Article 29: "...If the convulsion heals the foot warmth, make peony licorice soup with it, and its feet will be stretched", which benefits from its yin-benefiting effect. If the dosage of peony is heavy, and then accompanied by licorice, its analgesic effect will be highlighted. On the small and medium-sized Jianzhong decoction, cinnamon branch plus peony decoction, and cinnamon branch plus yellow decoction, etc., all reuse peony and licorice in order to relieve pain.
Jin Kui Yaolu, Phlegm Drink Cough Disease Pulse Syndrome and Treatment", "The patient's pulse is volatile, and his people want to benefit themselves, and the benefit is fast, although it is profitable, the heart continues to be full, this is the desire to stay and drink, and the Gansui Banxia soup is the master." "The water of this certificate is left for drinking, although there is a tendency to go, the witness is self-interested, and the benefit is fast, but the pathogenesis is still there, and the heart continues to be full. Zhongjing takes Gansui as the king, attacks water and drinks, and uses licorice.
Shennong's Materia Medica" cloud, Gansui anti-licorice. Tao Hongjing said in the "Commentary on the Materia Medica: Preface" that "don't use the opposite and opposite". And Zhongjing is precisely using gansui with licorice, taking the opposite of it in order to stimulate each other and use each other, which means that in this article, the word "stay".
There are many kinds of "drinking" in Zhongjing's book, all of which are "stagnant water" that stops but does not disperse, stagnates but does not work, and has no air. However, Zhong Jing called the evidence of this article "staying and drinking", which shows that in Zhong Jing's view, the water evil in this certificate has stopped gathering, sinking and stubborn, deeply entangled and stubborn, so it is unconventional, and uses gansui with licorice on the contrary to seek agitation, so that the lingering drink of lingering and entanglement can be exhausted with the agitation.
Licorice is here, which is intended to strengthen the power of Gansui to chase water.
Producer
Jingyun "the cold is hot, and the hot is cold", this belongs to the favor to save the disadvantages, in order to seek its harmony. However, the way of medicine, although it is biased, can not be passed, or the righteousness or cold and heat are refused. Therefore, another important purpose of Zhongjing's use of licorice is to monitor the extremity of the drug, in order to blunt its agitation and uninhibited bias, so that it can more highlight the required efficacy and reduce toxicity
As in Article 29: "...Those who get the stool, dry throat, irritability and vomit rebellion, make licorice and ginger soup with it. "This recipe reuses four taels of licorice, while the dosage of dried ginger is only two taels, but to achieve the purpose of "restoring its yang", the main drug relied on is dried ginger, not licorice. This side reuses licorice, the purpose of which is to make the dried ginger guard the middle and restore the yang, not only to prevent it from diving, but also to prevent it from going to the table.
In addition, compared with the four reverse soups, the dry ginger aconite soup is only less licorice in terms of drug composition, and Article 61 has a cloud: "After the next day, ** sweat, irritability and sleeplessness during the day, quiet at night, no vomiting, no thirst, no evidence, weak pulse, no great heat, dry ginger aconite soup is the main one." ”
This syndrome first goes down and then sweats, and the mistreatment causes a sudden decay of righteousness, and the death of the yang is instantaneous, although the onset is urgent, but it is not a chronic disease, so it is urgent to use ginger to return to the yang with great heat, in order to seek its strength to be sharp and effective.
Although the four reverse soup has the function of returning to the yang, Zhongjing is mostly used to open up the accumulation of gloomy and cold to return to the yang, so ginger is attached with licorice, which is slow in urgency, sharp and soft, one is in the middle, and the other is slow ginger with the sharp qi of the channel, in case of cold and heat.
The white tiger soup uses the gypsum of the great cold, the mother, the function is in the heat of the discharge, in order to prevent it from being cold, so the licorice is used to slow its nature, and the japonica rice is used to protect the middle. The rhubarb and miscanthus of the stomach-regulating Chengqi soup are in the solid and cleansing heat, and the licorice is used to slow its temperament, so as to prevent it from going down quickly, highlighting the meaning of regulating the stomach.
Urgency
In the Treatise on Typhoid Fever, when the symptoms are urgent, licorice is used to treat the symptoms. Article 158: "...Its people are profitable, and dozens of lines ...... a dayretching and upset", although the pathogenesis is the same as that of Banxia Xingxin Soup, but due to the urgency of the symptoms, the lower profit is so bad that it is "dozens of lines a day", and the retching is upset to the extent of "unrestless". Therefore, on the basis of the original prescription of Banxia Xingxin Soup, the dosage of licorice should be increased, so that it occupies the position of the king medicine and highlights the function of urgency.
Jin Kui Yaoluo Vomiting and Treating the Pulse of Illness said: "Those who vomit after eating are the main ones of rhubarb licorice soup." "This certificate vomits when eaten, it is really heat obstruction, heat accumulation is fire, the intestines are blocked, the qi cannot be lowered, and the qi and fire are forced to rebel, so after eating, they immediately rush and vomit. Rhubarb licorice soup for the party: four taels of rhubarb, one tael of licorice. Use rhubarb to clear the intestines, clear the heat and reduce the fire, and the licorice slows down the urgency and the middle, so that the pass will not be excessive.
In addition, Article 175 of the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever": "Those who fight against rheumatism, have pain in the joints, cannot bend or stretch in pain, and those who are close to it are in severe pain, sweat and shortness of breath, who are not good for urination, who do not want to remove their clothes from the bad wind, or who are slightly swollen, are the master of licorice aconite soup." "This is rheumatism flow into the joints, the symptoms are acute and urgent, so licorice is used, one is to relieve pain to treat the symptoms, and the other is stubborn, in order to alleviate the treatment.
Concord
Treatise on Typhoid Fever is combined with drugs with a large contrast between cold and heat, accompanied by licorice as a knot intermediary.
The combination of cold and heat drugs through the harmony of licorice establishes a connection, so that the prescription becomes a whole structure and thus works on a holistic level. For example, Chai Hu Gui Zhi Dry Ginger Soup, Xiao Chai Hu Tang, Coptis Soup, Banxia Xingxin Tang and other prescriptions, there are many drugs, the compatibility relationship is more complex, cold and hot are used together, and licorice is used as the intermediary, all-round connection, network, and summary of each drug, so that the prescription is integrated.
Zhongjing's use of licorice goes beyond the understanding of licorice in Shennong's Materia Medica.
"Famous Doctors' Catalogue" summarizes licorice: "Warm and low breath, annoyed and short of breath, cough and wounds, quench thirst, clear the meridians, benefit blood and qi, and relieve all kinds of poisons." ”
From it, we can trace the traces of licorice haunting in "Treatise on Typhoid Fever" and "Jin Kui Yaolu".
A taste of licorice, which is used vertically and horizontally by Zhongjing, is left and right. From a small point of view, it is a medicine, and from a large point of view, it is a prescription. As a one-flavor medicine, it exerts different effects in different compatibility structures. As a side, it embodies the inner law.
Article 311, less yin disease, external evil guest hot sore throat, there is reality in the void, here, the void should not be supplemented, the heat should not be discharged, with raw licorice light product to remove it, if the brush does not go, and then add the bellflower bitter to clear it, the bitter to disperse, willing to slow it, this is the ancestral recipe for treating sore throat in later generations - bellflower soup.
Among the 70 squares of licorice used in the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever", only the licorice of licorice soup is used raw, and it is used to seek its light and cool when it is used, and it is used for the hot sore throat of the evil guest outside the Shaoyin disease, which shows the strange effect of peace.