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A dyer's wife in Qianqiu had suffered from abdominal pain for two months. Some considered it to be cold, heat, qi stagnation, deficiency, food retention, or parasites, and treatments were tried sequentially, only to make the condition worse. A physician applied a plaster as large as a dou (a unit of volume) covering her entire abdomen, which intensified the pain. When the plaster was removed, it was found to be stuck so firmly that it could not be lifted; despite using fire to warm it and oil to lubricate it, countless attempts failed to move it by even a fraction of an inch, resembling tissue grown into the flesh. Helpless, she heard that I was staying at the residence of a local official in Wu, so she hired a boat to seek my diagnosis. Upon arriving at the Wumen Bridge pier, the dyer, accompanied by his mother and mother-in-law, three people in total, struggled to support her, yet she could not move a single step. The crowd on the shore, dense as a wall, all said to the dyer: "With the illness this severe, it is difficult to arrive even moment by moment; are you forcing her up to defile our bridge pier?" The dyer then left his wife in the boat, went ashore, and earnestly requested my treatment. Inside the boat, I observed her complexion was dark and sallow. When extending her arm for pulse diagnosis, her skin was dry like the bark of an old pine tree. All six pulses were surging and rapid. I asked where the abdominal pain was located. The dyer immediately undressed to expose her abdomen and pointed to the painful area, revealing the reason for the plaster's adhesion; such cases are rare. Inquiring about her inability to walk, the woman said: "It is not due to weakness preventing movement, but because my left foot cannot move; any movement causes pain to radiate to the heart, hence I cannot lift a step." I pondered deeply: both the complexion and the pulses indicated no fatal prognosis, why did the treatment exacerbate the condition? This must be Changyong (Intestinal Abscess), and the inability to raise the left foot is its sign. I prescribed Yingwei Fanhun Tang (Camp and Defense Soul-Returning Decoction), with Jinyinhua (Lonicerae Japonicae Flos, Honeysuckle Flower) as the sovereign herb, four doses in total, decocted with one bowl of water and one bowl of wine. After one dose, the pain decreased slightly; after two doses, half a bucket of foul-smelling pus was discharged, and the pain completely subsided. The plaster on the abdomen fell off naturally without manual removal, indicating that the heat pathogen had cleared, causing the plaster to detach. After completing the four doses, the woman and the dyer visited the Wu residence to thank me and requested a follow-up prescription. The family at the Wu residence was astonished upon seeing her.

Wang Zuquan experienced tenesmus (urgent need to defecate with little result), abdominal pain, and passed thirty to forty stools daily consisting of dark purple, thick, and sticky material. All renowned physicians in the market uniformly treated him for Li (Dysentery). From autumn through winter, spanning over three months, he did not recover. His physical appearance was emaciated and exhausted; he loathed lifting spoons and chopsticks, and even if forced, consumed only a small bowl before stopping. His eyes remained closed, reluctant to open, and everyone deemed it an incurable case and abandoned him. Later, he sought my pulse diagnosis; the pulses in all six positions were soft and weak. Observing the color of his excrement, it was very dull, resembling juice from taro shoots. I stated: "Judging by this color, it is not Dysentery, but Zangdu Xiexue (Visceral Toxemia with Hematochezia). The Ren Shen Chu Pi San (Ginseng and Black Cork Bark Powder) recorded in *Yi Shuo* (Medical Sayings) is precisely the appropriate formula for this condition." I prepared it for him immediately. That night, the symptoms indeed halved, and upon finishing the course, he was fully cured. The formula consisted of Ren Shen (Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma) and Chu Gen Bai Pi (Phellodendri Cortex, Phellodendron Bark), each two liang, ground into powder. Each time, two qian were taken orally with rice water on an empty stomach. Dietary restrictions included avoiding meat broth, raw vegetables, and fishy odors.