Chinese Medicine: Starting with Daily Intelligence-Chapter 62: Aftereffects of a Cold

Li Xu didn’t rest after he returned.

Instead, he made a few phone calls.

Soon, a few patients began arriving at the clinic one after another.

These were the pediatric anorexia patients Professor Gao had recommended a few days ago.

Some had come from the provincial capital, others from out of province.

There were four patients in total.

The one who had been waiting the longest had been here for four days.

"My apologies. I thought I’d be back the same day..."

Li Xu apologized to the patients.

The patients’ families had been a little upset, but when Li Xu brought out the special rice, their complaints instantly turned into delighted surprise.

They left one by one, beaming with joy.

But Li Xu didn’t feel much joy.

He knew the truth himself.

His treatment for pediatric anorexia relied on the special medicinal rice.

Once the medicinal rice was gone, he would be back to square one.

And the next harvest for the medicinal rice was nearly half a year away.

’I still need to improve my own skills.’

Li Xu took out a medical book and began to read it seriously.

The knowledge of Traditional Chinese Medicine was as vast as the ocean; it required a lifetime of study.

Take, for instance, the most fundamental Four Diagnostic Methods.

The inquiry part of the diagnosis followed the "Ten Questions": first, about chills and fever; second, sweat; third, head and body; fourth, urination and defecation; fifth, diet and appetite; sixth, the chest; seventh, hearing; eighth, thirst; ninth, previous illnesses; and tenth, the cause. Additionally, the effects of any medications had to be taken into account.

Each question was a field of study in itself.

For example, asking about the patient’s suffering—the chief complaint and history of the present illness—was the focus of the inquiry.

One had to understand the location, nature, and changes of the symptoms, as well as the relationships between them. For instance, when a patient coughed, one asked about phlegm. For a fever, one asked about chills and sweating. For abdominal pain, one asked about their bowel movements.

The duration of the symptoms was also important. Generally, a long-term onset indicated a deficiency syndrome, while a short-term onset indicated an excess syndrome.

The goal was to be thorough without omission and accurate without falsehood.

The most difficult method was palpation, also known as pulse-taking.

A person could have a normal pulse or a pathological pulse.

A normal pulse should be moderate, even, neither fast nor slow, neither large nor small, neither hard nor soft. Its rate should be "four or five beats per breath," known in sphygmology as a moderate pulse.

There were twenty-nine common pathological pulses and the Seven Strange Veins.

The fifteen most common were the floating pulse, the deep pulse, the slow pulse, the rapid pulse, and so on...

Each pulse type corresponded to a specific ailment.

And that was before even considering the other symptoms.

Li Xu had to admit he had barely scratched the surface.

Just as he was reading, another patient came in—a young woman holding a child.

Li Xu found her vaguely familiar; she lived in a nearby residential complex.

But he couldn’t recall her name.

"Doctor Li, you’re finally back! Please take a look at my son. He’s had this cold for a long time, and it just won’t go away."

Wang Ruiying anxiously sat down in front of Li Xu, clutching her child.

The child didn’t look very old.

"Don’t worry."

Li Xu began his inquiry while comforting Wang Ruiying, "How old is your son?"

"Three and a half."

"Tell me what’s been happening."

"Well... here’s what happened. My son usually loves to eat meat, and he normally only has a bowel movement once every two days.

Half a month ago, he caught a cold. I thought it was caused by food stagnation, so I gave him a wind-heat cold remedy—Honeysuckle Granules. But it didn’t get any better..."

Hearing this, Li Xu shook his head.

A fever caused by food stagnation in children is known in Traditional Chinese Medicine as ’accumulation heat’.

This occurs because a child’s spleen and stomach functions are not yet fully developed. If their diet is immoderate and they eat too much, the food stagnates in the middle burner, and the accumulation eventually transforms into heat, causing their body temperature to rise.

However, this is further divided into various syndromes, such as internal accumulation of milk and food, or spleen deficiency with accumulation.

Even an experienced old TCM doctor would need to differentiate carefully.

For someone like her, who didn’t understand TCM, to medicate her child haphazardly based on a little experience, it was highly likely she used the wrong treatment.

Sure enough, Wang Ruiying continued, "When I saw he wasn’t getting better, I gave him loquat paste and also administered a heat-clearing and detoxifying medicine as a suppository. But instead of improving, he got even worse. I realized something was wrong, so I stopped all the medicine."

"You’ve really been reckless with his medication."

Li Xu was speechless.

The child was so young. Instead of taking him to a doctor right away, she just randomly gave him medicine. It was simply absurd.

Wang Ruiying was on the verge of tears, continuing her story with a choked voice, "...After stopping the medicine for two days, my son’s hands and feet went from warm to ice-cold... Then he suddenly developed a high fever. It started at 38.5°C and quickly rose to 40°C. He was averse to cold and also had diarrhea...

I rushed him to the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The doctor there said that because my son had a fever but was also averse to cold, it was a case of ’alternating chills and fever’... something about a ’classic Minor Chaihu Decoction syndrome’... I didn’t understand any of it...

The doctor prescribed Minor Bupleurum Granules.

My son broke out in a sweat, and his fever dropped a little, to around 38°C. After two days, the fever broke completely.

But for the half-month since then, my son has been frequently coughing and wheezing. It’s most noticeable when he lies down to sleep at night and right after he wakes up in the morning.

So I changed his diet, and he’s been eating only vegetarian food for two weeks. But he’s still constipated, with dry, difficult stools, only going once every two days... and now he’s running a slight fever again...

Doctor Li, please take a look. What on earth is going on?"

After listening, Li Xu didn’t speak right away.

At this moment, he was under immense pressure.

Sweat even began to bead on his forehead.

He had built his reputation recently by being able to treat the flu.

However, his flu treatments relied mainly on the miraculous Daqing Leaf.

His own skill level wasn’t high enough.

The pediatric patient before him didn’t have the flu.

The Daqing Leaf couldn’t be used.

And today’s "information" hadn’t provided a solution either.

This time, he could only rely on himself.

If he couldn’t cure this patient, all his recent efforts might go to waste.

Li Xu took a deep breath.

He encouraged himself inwardly: ’I can do this!’

’I studied hard in school, and Dad taught me hands-on during winter and summer breaks.’

’Can I really not even treat a patient suffering from the after-effects of a cold?’

Li Xu calmed his mind and began the diagnosis.

First, he observed the patient’s condition.

The patient’s face was flushed, and his lips were dry and peeling;

His tongue was reddish, with a thin coat and scattered red points;

His eyelids were slightly swollen, and his nostrils flared faintly;

Next was auscultation and olfaction.

His breathing was coarse and heavy, accompanied by a slight wheezing sound;

His cough was muffled, with no obvious sound of phlegm;

A faint, sour, putrid odor emanated from his mouth;

Finally, he took the pulse.

Li Xu didn’t dare to be careless, palpating for a full five minutes before he stopped.

The pulse was floating and rapid, especially prominent in the right cun position.

The palms were hot, but the backs of the hands were a normal temperature.

Abdominal palpation revealed slight epigastric distension, and a cord-like induration could be felt in the lower left abdomen.

...

Li Xu fell silent, analyzing the cause.

The patient originally had a Taiyang stage illness, with the pathogen on the exterior. The parent’s mistaken use of cold and cooling heat-clearing medicines damaged the child’s Yang Qi, which was supposed to be expelling the pathogen outwards. This caused the external pathogen to penetrate deeper, step by step, which is why the cold never resolved.

After the medication was stopped, the cold hands and feet were because the body’s Yang Qi had been driven inward by the cold-natured drugs, leaving insufficient Yang Qi on the surface.

However, the internal Yang Qi then had a chance to rest and recover. After gathering its strength, it became capable of resisting the pathogen and mounted a counterattack. This is why the body developed a fever—to force the cold pathogen out.

At the same time, because the cold pathogen had already entered the stomach and intestines, the body induced diarrhea to expel it.

This was the patient’s self-healing system at work.

Unfortunately, the parent then encountered an incompetent doctor who actually diagnosed the patient with ’alternating chills and fever’ and a ’Minor Chaihu Decoction syndrome’.

Li Xu found one of his father’s notebooks.

A passage was recorded inside:

"From birth until three or four years of age, a child’s Yang Qi is very abundant. Barring special circumstances (like a major congenital disease, or frequent IV drips, injections, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, or even surgery from a young age), they can self-heal from most external pathogens. Most ailments will be Taiyang or Yangming syndromes; Shaoyang syndromes are rare."

...

P.S. I want to apologize to everyone. Because this book’s performance has been average and there are no further recommendations scheduled, it will be going up for sale tomorrow.

Thank you all for your votes during this time. Without your support, the author wouldn’t have been able to write this far.

It’s embarrassing to ask, but I still have to.

Please support the first paid Chapter tomorrow.

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I wish everyone a happy and safe May Day holiday.