《孫真人備急千金要方》Vol. 75

Ancient practitioners believed that a person who suddenly collapsed unconscious, had no detectable pulse, and showed no other obvious symptoms had suffered a depletion of both Yin and Yang Qi. Several treatments are recorded below.

Medicines and treatment methods

Bring an ox close to the patient’s nose and let it lick the nose about two hundred times. It was said that the patient would improve afterward. If the ox refused to lick, smear salt water on the patient’s face, and the ox would come to lick it.

Another method was to take ox or horse dung, squeeze out its juice, and have the patient swallow it. If fresh dung was unavailable, dry dung could be mixed with water. The Zhouhou Fang says that dry dung could be mixed with human urine; this was Bian Que’s method.

A third method was to heat an iron and, through the patient’s clothing, apply it to the flanks on both sides. The Jieji Fang says this method was also used to treat “corpse-like collapse” (shijue), a sudden faint in which the limbs grow rigid and cold, as though the person had died.

Acupuncture and moxibustion

Insert needles at the “Jianshi” points on both sides, near the wrists, and leave them in for more than a hundred breaths. Moxibustion may also be applied to the Renzhong point beneath the nose. Renzhong is also called the “Ghost Guest Hall.” The Zhouhou Fang says these methods were also used to treat corpse-like collapse.

Treating unconsciousness after a nightmare

Take care not to let lamplight flicker, and do not let anyone else handle or pull at the patient. Bring an ox above the patient, and the patient will wake.

If the patient suddenly becomes unable to speak, grind the head of a chicken from the eastern gate into powder and swallow it with wine.

Treating sudden unconsciousness after a nightmare

Pound chives and extract the juice, then pour it into the nostrils. In severe cases, pour it into both ears. The Zhang Zhongjing Fang says it may also be poured into the mouth.

Treating a coma believed to be caused by a ghost pressing on the person

Grind “Fulong Gan” (the earth from the center of a stove) into powder and blow it into the nostrils.

Another method is to grind Chinese honeylocust pods into powder and blow an amount the size of a pea into the nostrils. After the patient sneezes, it was said, the breath will flow freely and the patient will wake. The Jiyan Fang says this was also used to treat “sudden evil influence” (zhonge), a term used in antiquity for sudden collapse, derangement, and similar conditions.

Preventing nightmares

Tie a piece of realgar the size of a date beneath the left armpit. It was said that this would prevent nightmares for life. The Zhang Wen Zhong Fang says men should wear it on the left and women on the right.

Moxibustion may also be applied fourteen times at the places where hair grows in clusters beside the big toes on both feet. The Zhouhou Fang says this was Hua Tuo’s method and could also be used to revive someone who had collapsed unconscious or suffered sudden evil influence.

Treating sudden evil influence

Take the yellow core of a scallion and insert it into a nostril until it bleeds; it was said that the patient would then recover. The Zhouhou Fang says it may be inserted seven or eight inches and would cause no harm; bleeding from the eyes was considered even better. The Cui Shi Fang says men should use the left nostril and women the right.

Another method is to grind fourteen soybeans into powder, mix them with an egg yolk and wine, and have the patient swallow the mixture all at once.

Another prescription: Have someone urinate on the patient’s face; this can cure the condition. (The Zhouhou Fang says this was Bian Que’s method.)

Another prescription: Apply fifty cones of moxibustion to the pit of the stomach (the upper abdomen), and the patient will recover. (One burning of a moxa cone is called one zhuang.)

Prescriptions for Treating Sudden Affliction by Evil Influences and Gu Poison

Mix cold water with Fulonggan (the earth from inside a stove). Take a piece about the size of an egg. The patient will certainly vomit after taking it.

Another prescription: Warm lard and take two sheng (a traditional measure of volume) at once.

Another prescription: Take a piece of axle grease about the size of an egg, and swallow it with wine.

Prescriptions for Treating Sudden Adverse Attacks

The “sudden adverse attack” referred to here is what is now called sudden affliction by evil influences. It resembles sudden death and ghost-strike illness, so the prescriptions for those conditions may also be considered.

Take eight he (a traditional measure of volume) of salt, add three sheng of water, and boil until reduced to one and a half sheng. Divide into two doses. The patient will recover after vomiting. (The Beiji Fang says this prescription treats ghost-strike.) If urination is blocked, burn the tips of seven brushes to ash, grind the ash into powder, and mix it with water to take; urination will then resume.

Another prescription: Take half a bowl of calf dung, boil it in three sheng of wine, and drink it. This can also treat cholera. (The Zhouhou Fang says it treats ghost-strike and that the dung of a full-grown ox may also be used.)

Another prescription: Grind ink into powder and swallow one qianbi (the amount held in a traditional medicine-measuring scoop) with water.

Another prescription: Burn the intestines of a wild fox caught in the twelfth lunar month to ash. Take one fangcungbi (the amount held in a scoop roughly one square inch across) with water. Ash from a dead rat is also effective.

Treating Sudden Adverse Attacks and Unconsciousness with Moxibustion

Apply three moxa cones beneath each of the ten fingernails. Other treatments are the same as above. (The Beiji Fang says this method treats sudden death in cases where both eyes are open and the body is arched backward.)

Moxibustion may also be applied three times at Renzhong, one hundred times at Jianjing, seven times at Jianshi, and one hundred times at Juque.

Soul-Restoring Decoction

This prescription is used when someone is suddenly afflicted by evil influences such as sudden illness from evil forces, ghost-strike, or flying corpse, and abruptly loses breath and consciousness. Some patients appear to have died, with their jaws clenched and their mouths unable to open. Pry open the teeth and pour the decoction into the mouth. If the liquid enters the mouth but cannot be swallowed, part the patient’s hair to either side, grasp it, and pull while pressing down on the shoulders with your feet, so the liquid goes down. Give more of the medicine until the full one sheng has been taken. After a short while, the patient will awaken. The prescription is as follows:

Three liang of mahuang (ephedra), two liang of guixin (cinnamon bark), one liang of gancao (licorice), and seventy kernels of xingren (apricot kernel).

Cut the four ingredients into pieces, add eight sheng of water, and boil until reduced to three sheng. Divide into three doses. (The Zhouhou Fang says this is Zhang Zhongjing’s prescription, but without guixin.)

Prescription for Sudden Ghost-Strike, or for Wounds from Blades or Weapons with Unstoppable Bleeding and Blood Stasis in the Abdomen, Causing Distension, Agitation, and Near Loss of Breath

Take powdered realgar with wine, one daogui (a very small traditional measure of medicine), three times a day. The text says the blood will turn into water after the medicine is taken.

“Ghost-strike illness” refers to sudden, severe pain that comes without warning. The patient feels as if pierced by a knife, with urgent, cramping pain in the chest, flanks, and abdomen that cannot be relieved by pressure. Sometimes the patient also vomits blood, bleeds from the nose or mouth, or passes blood in the stool. This illness is also called “Ghost Pressing.”

A treatment: Take white chicken droppings, about the size of a jujube, and a handful of qinghuama. Boil them in seven sheng of wine until three sheng remain. Drink it hot. After a while, the patient should sweat. If there is no sweating, put hot coals in a warming pan and apply it beneath both flanks to warm the body and induce sweating; the illness should then be cured.

Another prescription: Take three pieces of mugwort, each the size of a chicken egg, and boil them in five sheng of water until two sheng remain. Drink the whole amount at once.

Another prescription: Blow a little vinegar into the nose.

Moxibustion: Apply one moxa cone to Renzhong, the point between the nose and upper lip. This usually works quickly; if there is no improvement, apply moxibustion again. One may also apply seven moxa cones one cun above the navel, and moxibustion at the junction between the white flesh and the heel of both feet until the illness is cured. Another option is to apply three moxa cones one cun below the navel.

A prescription for the “Five Fatal Conditions.” These are five emergencies: hanging, being crushed by a wall, drowning, suffocating in one’s sleep, and fainting or losing one’s breath during childbirth.

Take one liang of pinellia, grind it carefully into a fine powder, and sift it. Blow a quantity about the size of a bean into the nose. If the chest is still warm, the person is said to be recoverable even after a day has passed.

A prescription for someone who has died by hanging:

When rescuing someone who has hanged themselves, first remain calm and do not cut the rope. Support the person’s body with your hands and slowly loosen the noose. If the chest is still warm, cover the mouth and nose with a blanket or similar cloth, and have two people blow air into the ears, one person on each side.

Another prescription: Lay the patient on their back and plug both ears. Put a bamboo tube into the mouth, then have two people blow forcefully into the tube while sealing the edges of the mouth to keep the air from escaping. After blowing for half a day, stop if the deceased gives a sigh.

Another prescription: Pound Chinese honeylocust and asarum into powder. Take an amount the size of a broad bean and blow it into both nostrils.

Another prescription: Prick a chicken’s comb and drip the blood into the patient’s mouth. Use a hen for a man and a rooster for a woman.

Another prescription: Take white chicken droppings the size of a jujube, mix them with half a cup of wine, and pour the mixture into the patient’s mouth. Also drip it into the nose; this is considered more effective.

Another prescription: Grind Chinese honeylocust into powder and use a scallion leaf to blow it into both nostrils. If the powder comes back out of the nose, blow more in.

Another prescription: Take dust from a roof beam, measure out a quantity the size of a bean for each person, and put each portion into a small bamboo tube. Have four people each hold a tube and blow into the patient’s two ears and two nostrils at the same time; this is said to bring the person back to life.

Another prescription: Drip urine into the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears. Then seize a small lock of hair, about as thick as a brush handle, and pull it sharply; this is said to revive the person.

Another remedy: Smear chicken blood below the throat.

Another remedy: Pour blue-green juice down the patient’s throat.

Another remedy: Apply moxibustion at the hollows of the large joints of the limbs and at the base of the thumb, using seven cones at each location. “Cone” is the unit used to measure the moxa used in moxibustion. The original phrase “wen ming yue di xiu” appears to contain textual errors or omissions, and its meaning is unclear.

Remedies for heatstroke

Take dust from a road that has been heated by the sun and cover the patient’s chest with it. Replace it with fresh dust as soon as it cools slightly, and continue until the patient’s breathing becomes unobstructed.

Another remedy: Have the person suffering from heatstroke lie on their back, and apply hot earth to the navel to help their breathing. They will begin to recover once the area around the navel becomes warm.

Another remedy: The patient may drink hot soup, or you may boil a few slices each of dried ginger and tangerine peel in water and give it to them. Have the patient swallow a little at a time; do not let them drink until they are too full. Applying only hot earth, scallions, and mugwort leaves to the navel is also very effective.

Another remedy: Boil smartweed down until concentrated, then give the patient three sheng of the liquid. If they do not improve, administer another dose.

Another remedy: Open the patient’s mouth to clear the way, then slowly pour warm soup into it. Raise the patient’s head slightly so the soup flows into the stomach. They will regain consciousness after a while.

Another remedy: Have someone breathe onto the patient’s chest, warming it, and then have another person take over.

Another remedy: Bring a small dog or a chicken and place it on the patient’s chest to warm it.

Another remedy: Heat a roof tile from the south side of the roof and use it to warm the patient’s chest. Replace it when it cools.

Another remedy: Give the patient one cup of earth-slurry water—water mixed with soil and left to settle—and they will recover.

Another remedy: Have the patient drink one cup of rehmannia juice.

Another remedy: Mix one large handful of flour with half a sheng of water and give it to the patient.

Remedies for drowning

Spread the ashes from a stove on the ground to a depth of five cun. Place a rice-steaming vessel on its side on the ashes, then lay the drowning victim face down over it, with the head hanging slightly downward. Put two square-cun measures of toasted salt into a bamboo tube and blow it through the tube into the opening underneath. The patient should then vomit water. Once the water has come out, remove the vessel and place the patient in the ashes. Cover the body with ashes, leaving only the mouth and nose exposed; this will revive them.

Another remedy: Dig a pit and heat several hu of ashes before putting them into it. Place the drowning victim in the pit and cover them with the ashes. Replace the ashes once they are thoroughly damp, and take care that they are not so hot as to burn the person. Replace them when they cool as well. Continue for half a day, and the person can be revived.

Another remedy: Take a large rice-steaming vessel and set it at an angle. Lay the drowning victim face down over it, with the mouth facing the opening. Light fourteen bundles of reeds inside the vessel, beneath the patient’s chest, so that a little smoke enters the patient’s nose and mouth. When the water has drained from the nose and mouth, the person can be revived. Add more fuel as soon as it burns out, and frequently feel the patient’s body and the vessel with your hand to make sure they do not get too hot. The heat from the fire need only warm the patient from the chest downward. If no rice-steaming vessel is available…

Dig a pit on the riverbank shaped like a steamer, leaving an opening below for the fire. Light a fire to warm the pit, then place the drowning person on top. A wheel rim may be used instead. Do not let the abdomen sag into the pit. Keep the person’s head lowered so the water can drain out. Meanwhile, burn several measures of plant ash. Warm the ash and scatter it over the body; when it becomes damp and cold, replace it with warm ash.

Another method: Bury the drowning person in warm ash, covering the head and feet and leaving only the seven orifices—the eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, and other openings—exposed.

Another method: Hang the person upside down, pour good wine into the nostrils, then pour some into the lower opening. Vinegar may also be poured into the nose.

Another method: Wrap a soap pod (a pungent bean pod traditionally used to open the bodily passages) in cotton and insert it into the lower opening. After a while, water will flow out.

Another method: Wrap some lime and insert it into the lower opening. Once the water has drained out, the person will revive.

Another method: Hang the drowning person upside down and remove their clothes. Clean the navel, then blow forcefully into both ears until the body begins to move.

Another method: Cover the drowning person with hot sand, including the face, while leaving the nose, mouth, and ears exposed. Replace the sand when it becomes cold or wet.

Another method: Bury the person from head to foot in the ash from two stoves, leaving the seven orifices exposed. They will revive.

Another method: Bend the drowning person’s legs and rest them over the shoulders of someone who is alive, so that the drowning person’s back rests against the other person’s back. The living person should carry them while walking. When the person vomits up water, they will revive.

Another method: Remove the drowning person’s clothes and apply moxibustion—gentle heat from burning mugwort—to the navel. Even if a night has passed since they fell into the water, they may still be revived.

Treatment for someone who fell into water in winter, whose limbs are frozen stiff and jaw is clenched, but who still has a faint breath:

Heat ash in a large vessel and put it into a cloth bag. Place the bag gently on the chest, replacing it when it cools. Once the chest is warm, the breath flows freely, the eyes can move, and the mouth opens, give the person a little warm urine or gruel, feeding it slowly. They will revive. If the body is heated directly with fire before the chest is warmed, the cold and heat will contend, and the person may die.

A remedy for frostbite sores:

Take the small, hard hoof at the back of a pig’s hind foot. Burn it to ash at midnight, grind it finely, and sift it. Mix it evenly with lard and apply. This also treats children.

A remedy for swelling and pain after the hands or feet have been soaked in water:

Pound fresh sesame and apply it to the affected area.

What to do after drinking too much, when worried about damage to the internal organs:

Put hot water in a trough and have the drunk person soak in it, replacing the water with hot water when it cools. Use hot water even in summer.

Another method: Pound cogongrass roots, extract the juice, and drink three sheng.

Another method: If someone cannot sleep after drinking, have another person keep shaking and turning them. They must especially avoid lying facing the wind, sleeping on the ground, washing the body with water, drinking water, or having sex.

A remedy for headache after drinking:

Take five liang of bamboo shavings and add eight sheng of water. Bring to a boil and simmer until five sheng remain, then strain out the herbs…

Once the medicinal liquid has cooled, add five eggs and stir well. Bring it to a boil twice more, then drink two sheng in one sitting. The illness will be cured.

A prescription for abdominal bloating after drinking, when food and drink do not digest

Boil salt water, then use a bamboo tube to inject it into the anus.

A prescription for alcohol poisoning

Boil soybeans until the water has come to a boil three times, then drink three sheng of the soybean broth.

Another prescription: Soak dried mulberries in wine, then take the juice.

A prescription for alcohol-related illness

One sheng each of scallion whites and fermented soybeans.

Add four sheng of water to these two ingredients and boil until two sheng remain. Drink it all at once.

A prescription for weakness and fever after drinking and sexual exertion, followed by several days without eating; or for confusion and abnormal speech and behavior caused by drinking continuously through the heat of the fourth month, when the effects of alcohol spread through the body’s meridians and the heart Qi is weak

Two liang each of peony root, ginseng, Baiwei root, Trichosanthes root, bitter orange, and anemarrhena; one liang of licorice root; eight liang of fresh rehmannia root; half a sheng of sour jujube seeds; and three liang of poria with spirit-quieting properties (the Waitai Miyao gives “poria”).

Chop these ten ingredients, add one dou of water, and boil until three sheng remain. Divide into three doses.

A prescription for throat ulcers and sores on the tongue after drinking continuously for several months

One sheng of hemp seeds and two liang of scutellaria root (the Zhouhou Fang uses phellodendron bark; the Qianjin Yifang also uses two liang of phellodendron bark).

Grind these two ingredients into a fine powder and mix with honey to form pills. Hold one in the mouth.

A prescription for someone who remains unconscious from drunkenness

Drink one dou and two sheng of kudzu-root juice, continuing until the person wakes. The Zhouhou Fang says this prescription is for prolonged distress and discomfort from alcohol poisoning after drunkenness.

A prescription for reducing the effects of drunkenness while drinking

Two liang each of arborvitae seeds and hemp seeds.

Grind these two ingredients into a fine powder and sift it; this is one dose. After taking it, one can drink three times as much wine.

Another prescription:

Equal parts kudzu flowers and red bean flowers.

Grind the two ingredients together into a fine powder and take it. While drinking, one may also drink kudzu-root juice or celery juice, or drink a decoction of loquat leaves. These are also said to double the amount one can drink.

Another prescription: On the ninth day of the ninth month, gather chrysanthemums and grind them into a fine powder. Just before drinking, take one square-inch spoonful (an ancient measure for medicinal powder, about one spoonful).

Another prescription: Shade-dry red bean flowers and leaves for one hundred days, then grind them into a fine powder and take it.

Another prescription: On the fifth day of the fifth month, gather a grass stalk growing upside down in a well. Shade-dry it, grind it into a fine powder, and take it with wine.

A prescription for preventing the breath from smelling of alcohol after drinking

Take fourteen dried turnip roots (turnip is also called rutabaga, commonly known as kohlrabi). Steam them three times, then grind them into powder. Take two qian each time, washing it down with water after drinking wine.

A remedy for excessive drinking and irritability

Take grass growing upside down in an empty well. Burn it to ash and take it with water. Do not let the patient know.

Another remedy: Take dust from the patient’s bed, mix it with wine, and give it to him to drink.

A remedy for giving up alcohol

Willow flowers and ash made from the head of a rat killed in the twelfth lunar month. Use equal amounts of both ingredients and grind them into powder. At dusk, wash down one cup of the powder with wine.

Another remedy: Put seven sheng of wine in a bottle. Add half a liang of prepared cinnabar, quickly seal the bottle, and place it in a pigsty, where the pigs can jostle it. After seven days, take out the wine and have the patient drink it all.

Another remedy: On the first day of the first lunar month, pour five sheng of wine over the wooden part of a rice pounding implement. Pound it once, then drink the wine.

Another remedy: Take seven cockleburs from an old felt mat and burn them to ash. At dusk, put the ash into a cup of warm wine, recite an incantation secretly, and give it to the patient to drink without his knowledge. Afterward, he will no longer enjoy drinking wine.

Another remedy: Drink one sheng of white sow’s milk, and you will never drink alcohol again.

Another remedy: Scrape off horse sweat and mix it with wine for the patient to drink. It is said that he will never drink again for the rest of his life.

Another remedy: Take a bone from tiger dung, burn it to powder, mix it with wine, and give it to the patient.

Another remedy: Burn cormorant droppings to ash. Take one square-inch spoonful with water; it is said to cure drinking completely.

Another remedy: Take a feather vomited up by a hawk. Boil it in water, remove the feather, and have the patient drink the liquid all at once.

Another remedy: Burn the cord from an old spinning wheel to ash, mix it with wine, and give it to the patient.

Another remedy: Burn the afterbirth that covered a newborn donkey foal to ash. Take one square-inch spoonful with wine.

Another remedy: Take a grub that has died naturally, dry it in the sun, and grind it into powder. Mix it with wine and give it to the patient. It is said that afterward, even hearing the word “wine” will make him vomit. The remedy is exceptionally effective.

Another remedy: Take seven pieces of flesh from the vomit of a drinker, dry them in the shade, burn them to powder, and have the patient take it.

Another remedy: Pour wine into an old boot stained with sweat and leave it to soak overnight. At dawn the next day, have the patient drink it on an empty stomach. It is said that he will vomit and from then on will dislike the sight of wine.

Another remedy: Take white dog’s milk, washing it down with wine.

Another remedy: Take horse brain from the twelfth lunar month and mix it with wine to drink.