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Shang Han Lun · Treatise on Cold Damage
4. Spasm, Dampness and Summerheat Injury · Pulses and Signs
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The three Taiyang conditions of jing spasm disorder, shi dampness and ye summerheat injury should be discussed separately from cold damage. They are presented here because they resemble cold damage.
Taiyang illness with fever, no sweating and aversion to cold is called rigid jing spasm disorder.
Taiyang illness with fever and sweating but no aversion to cold is called soft jing spasm disorder.
Taiyang illness with fever and a deep, fine pulse is called jing spasm disorder.
In Taiyang illness, inducing excessive sweating can bring on jing spasm disorder.
A hot body and cold feet, tense stiffness of the neck and nape, aversion to cold, occasional heat of the head, a red face and red eyes, shaking of the head alone, sudden clenching of the mouth and backward arching of the back indicate jing spasm disorder. If sweating is induced, cold and dampness join, the exterior becomes still more deficient, and aversion to cold intensifies. After sweating has been induced, the pulse resembles a snake.
Taiyang illness with painful joints, agitation and a deep, fine pulse is called damp impediment. Its signs are difficult urination but unexpectedly free bowel movements. One should only promote urination.
In a person prone to dampness, illness produces pain throughout the body, fever and a smoke-yellow coloration of the body.
A person prone to dampness sweats only on the head, has a stiff back and wishes to be covered and face a fire. Early purging causes hiccups, or chest fullness and difficult urination. A coating-like appearance on the tongue indicates heat in the dantian and cold above in the chest. There is thirst and a wish to drink, yet inability to do so, with dry mouth and agitation.
After purging a person prone to dampness, sweating on the forehead with slight panting and free urination means death. Unceasing diarrhea also means death.
Question: Wind and dampness contend, causing pain throughout the body; ordinarily sweating should bring resolution. If overcast weather and unceasing rain occur, and a physician says sweating can be induced but the illness does not improve after it, why is this?
Answer: If profuse sweat is induced, only wind qi departs while damp qi remains, so recovery does not occur. In treating wind-dampness, induce only the slightest appearance of impending sweat; then wind and dampness depart together.
In dampness illness with bodily pain and fever, a yellow face, panting, headache, blocked nose and agitation, a large pulse, an ability to eat and drink normally, and a harmonious abdomen without illness, the disorder is cold-dampness within the head, hence the blocked nose. Placing medicine inside the nose brings recovery.
Pain throughout the body with fever that becomes more severe toward late afternoon is called wind-dampness. It is caused by facing wind while sweating, or by prolonged injury from seeking cold. Mahuang Xingren Yiyi Gancao Tang may be given.
Heat striking Taiyang is ye summerheat injury. With sweating, aversion to cold, bodily heat and thirst, Baihu Jia Renshen Tang governs.
In ye summerheat injury striking Taiyang, bodily heat, pain and heaviness with a faint, weak pulse result from injury by cold water in summer, with water moving through the skin. Yiwu Guadi Tang governs.
In ye summerheat injury striking Taiyang, there are fever, aversion to cold, bodily heaviness and pain, and a wiry, fine, hollow, slow pulse. After urination, shivering and raised body hair occur; the hands and feet are reversely cold. Slight exertion immediately makes the body hot. The mouth is open and the front teeth dry. Induced sweating intensifies aversion to cold; warm-needling intensifies fever; repeated purging intensifies lin urinary disorder.
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