2. Yin-Nourishing and Blood-Cooling Class Formulas

2. Yin-Nourishing and Blood-Cooling Class Formulas

When warm diseases progress from the qi level to the blood level, symptoms of yin injury and blood disturbance appear. At this point, using only heat-clearing and detoxifying agents is no longer the correct treatment; only yin-nourishing and blood-cooling agents can truly address the problem. Representative formulas in this category include Qing Ying Tang, Yu Nu Jian, Hua Ban Tang, and Xi Jiao Di Huang Tang.

Qing Ying Tang (from "Wen Bing Tiao Bian") consists of bamboo leaves, salvia, rhino horn, forsythia, coptis, honeysuckle, raw rehmannia, black ginseng, and ophiopogon, primarily treating cases where heat enters the blood level, with clinical symptoms such as tidal fever, intense thirst, confusion, agitation, and faint rashes. From a modern medical perspective, this formula is suitable for electrolyte disturbances and dehydration caused by high fever in acute infectious diseases. Yu Nu Jian (from "Jing Yue Quan Shu") consists of anemarrhena, achyranthes, gypsum, cooked rehmannia, and ophiopogon, mainly treating symptoms of irritability, thirst, headache, toothache, red tongue with little coating, and rapid, fine pulse. Traditional Chinese medicine considers this condition as excess yangming and deficiency of shaoyin, essentially indicating excessive heat injuring yin. Hua Ban Tang (from "Wen Bing Tiao Bian") consists of raw rehmannia, anemarrhena, japonica rice, licorice, black ginseng, peony, and cortex moutan, serving as the primary formula for heat entering the blood level, mainly treating cases where excessive heat forces blood to flow abnormally, with symptoms such as tidal fever, intense thirst, confusion, toxic rash, hematemesis, epistaxis, hematochezia, hematuria, dark red tongue without coating, and rapid, fine pulse. In recent years, this formula has been widely used in internal medicine for bleeding associated with real heat syndromes in various miscellaneous diseases.