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(Interior cold with fluid retention, see Yangming deficiency syndrome) Dry heaving accompanied by dizziness and salivation, frequent headaches reaching the vertex, caused by water-fluid retention in the stomach and severe cold; Wu Zhu Yu Tang (Evodia Decoction) can cure the disease.

(Interior cold with vomiting and cold extremities) Vomiting with a weak pulse indicates a critical condition. If urination appropriately returns to normal, although there is slight body heat but cold extremities are present, Si Ni Tang (Frigid Extremities Decoction) can still be used for treatment.

Bai Tou Weng Tang (Pulsatilla Decoction)

(Case attachment: Yang recovery with interior heat) In Jueyin disease with diarrhea, if the patient frequently craves cold water, and experiences dizziness due to Liver heat along with tenesmus, Huang Lian (Coptidis Rhizoma) and Huang Bo (Phellodendri Cortex) clear both Ministerial Fire and Sovereign Fire; Bai Tou Weng Tang combined with Qin Pi (Amentotwigs Bark) should be used.

(Yang recovery with interior heat, see Yangming excess syndrome) After diarrhea, Yang recovers but delirium occurs; dry stool is difficult to pass in the intestines. Using Xiao Cheng Qi Tang (Minor Order the Qi Decoction) is truly excellent; once Stomach heat is eliminated, the illness naturally resolves.

(Yang recovery with interior heat, see Taiyang complicated disease) After diarrhea, Yang recovers, excess pathogens are gone, epigastric fullness dissipates, and the area below the heart feels soft upon palpation. The arising irritability is ultimately due to deficiency; Zhi Zi Tang (Gardenia Decoction) promises effective results.

In my youth, I only studied Confucian classics and was not proficient in medicine. When my mother fell ill, it lingered for years. Famous doctors throughout the province were consulted almost exhaustively, yet the illness remained. Later, a doctor was hired who used harsh purgatives, causing the condition to worsen dangerously. I reflected that as a son, not knowing medicine, if one encounters a relative's illness and suffers from quackery, leading to death, what would the regret be? Thus, I resolutely resolved to study medicine. Without guidance from renowned masters, I only purchased and read commonly circulated medical texts. After ten years of reading, although I knew the basics, I had not grasped the true essence of this path. At age thirty-seven, I passed the metropolitan examination and entered the ministry as a clerk. In my spare time, I went to book markets to buy medical books. First, I obtained *Xu Shi Ba Zhong* (Eight Works of Xu) and *Chen Xiuyuan Shi Liu Zhong* (Sixteen Works of Chen Xiuyuan). Subsequently, I acquired Gao Shizong’s *Yi Xue Zhen Chuan* (True Transmission of Medicine), Zhang Yin’an’s *Lv Shan Tang Lei Bian* (Classifications from Lv Shan Hall), and later *Huang Shi Ba Zhong* (Eight Works of Huang). Seeing that these authors revered Huangdi and Qibo in antiquity and followed Zhang Zhongjing in recent times, I realized that *Nei Jing* (Inner Canon), *Shang Han Lun* (Treatise on Cold Damage), and *Jin Gui Yao Lue* (Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet) are the ancestors of medicine for all generations. After obtaining these books, I studied them for another twenty years, pondering day and night, and gained considerable insight. Therefore, I collected the purest elements from various books into one compilation, naming it *Yi Xue Zhai Cui* (Selected Essence of Medicine), implying that combining beauty and goodness allows for appropriate measures. After completing the book, I served as Prefect of Liangzhou, remaining in Gansu for sixteen years without putting down my medical books. When the Republic of China was founded, I resigned from my post in Xining and returned home. Fellow townspeople advised me to practice medicine to help the times, which I gladly accepted. However, city physicians laughed at and criticized my prescriptions, claiming that ancient formulas cannot treat modern diseases. I asked, if ancient formulas cannot treat diseases, do contemporary formulas succeed? I then examined cases treated by city physicians, requesting their original prescriptions. I saw that for qi disorders, they exclusively used qi-attacking herbs; for blood disorders, they exclusively used blood-attacking herbs. Generally, for any disease, they prescribed sixteen or twenty herbs indiscriminately, without regard for method. Strangely, in treating Shanghan (Cold Damage), they did not understand unblocking meridians and releasing the exterior, but instead applied purgatives first; in treating Wenbing (Warm Diseases), they did not understand venting the defensive level and nourishing the nutritive level, but exclusively used bitter-cold herbs; in treating Xu Lao (Consumptive Disease), they only discussed yin-nourishment; in treating Zhong Feng (Wind Stroke), they only knew warming-tonification. Their prescriptions were fragmented, so treatments failed, and patients came to seek my care. Yet these people, unaware that their trend-following errors caused harm, accused others of being pedantic for adhering to antiquity. Are they not willingly lost in confusion without returning? Seeing medicine deviate thus, with widespread calamity and suffering among living beings, and being seventy-seven years old myself, if I do not now devise a way to save them, whom else shall I wait for? Thus, I invited like-minded colleagues to compile songs and rhymes covering Shanghan, miscellaneous diseases, syndromes, and formulas, to facilitate learning for future generations. If those earnestly seeking the Dao learn in youth and practice in adulthood, perhaps we can reverse the decline. Hence, I record this.
May 20, Year 5 of the Republic of China. Self-recorded by Qing Shu, styled Yunge, from Shenshui.