It turns out that everything has to start with Liuwei Dihuang Pill. We all know that Liuwei Dihuang Pill is a famous prescription for tonifying kidney. It is famous because Liuwei Dihuang Pill's idea of tonifying kidney is ingenious. It doesn't use kidney-tonifying drugs directly from the beginning, but adopts the idea of "three supplements and three diarrhea". Let's not talk about why Liuwei Dihuang Pills tonify spleen and liver, but directly talk about tonifying kidney. In Liuwei Dihuang Pills, Dihuang tonifies the kidney, and the only medicine corresponding to Dihuang is Alisma orientale. What is Alisma orientalis? Alisma orientalis purges kidney. Many people don't quite understand "purging the kidney" and think that "purging the kidney" means purging the essence in the kidney, but this is not the case.
Teacher Ni made an interesting analogy when she was talking about tonifying the kidney. He said that if we compare people to cars and medicine to repairing cars, this is the way western medicine treats diseases. Take this car to the garage and let it stop for a while. Then, replace the parts that should be replaced, and remove those parts that are broken and useless and throw them away. Chinese medicine is not like this. This car is driving on the road, and Chinese medicine can help you repair it. This car doesn't need to stop or change any parts. From here on, whether Chinese medicine is clever or western medicine is clever, needless to say, everyone knows. How does Chinese medicine do it?
We take kidney deficiency as an example. We usually know that kidney deficiency needs nourishing drugs, but if only nourishing drugs are used, it is often irreparable. Why? Xia Hai explained that because your kidney must continue to work at the same time, you can't go in while it is working. Or, you did it, but it was useless because it was consumed again. What should we do?
Since the kidney is too busy and burdened, we should find ways to reduce the burden on the kidney and make it less hard. What does the kidney do? Chinese medicine says that the kidney governs water and is in charge of the metabolism of water and liquid, so Alisma orientale will be used at this time. The so-called Alisma orientalis can "diarrhea the kidney". In fact, Alisma orientalis can help the kidney manage water and help the kidney metabolize water. After Alisma orientalis goes down, the burden on the human kidney is greatly reduced, and the kidney can recuperate, free up energy and replenish energy for itself. At this time, no matter whether Radix Rehmanniae Preparata, Fructus Psoraleae or other drugs for tonifying kidney are used, the kidney can receive energy, thus achieving twice the result with half the effort.
From the extension of this theory, we should not only tonify the kidney, but also tonify the spleen, lung, liver and heart. Therefore, we can see that in Liuwei Dihuang Pill, Chinese yam is used to strengthen the spleen, and poria cocos is used to "purge the spleen" to help the spleen transport water and dampness and reduce the workload of the spleen; Cornus officinalis is nourishing the liver, and at the same time, peony bark is used to "purge the liver". Peony bark can promote blood circulation to remove blood stasis and reduce the workload of liver.
In the same way, you can think of using roasted licorice or cassia twig to strengthen your heart and help it work. That's the reason. In fact, we can continue to expand this idea. For example, drugs for enriching blood are used together with drugs for promoting blood circulation, such as Angelica sinensis with Chuanxiong, Paeonia lactiflora with Paeonia lactiflora, drugs for invigorating qi with drugs for regulating qi, such as Astragalus membranaceus with Pericarpium Citri Tangerinae, Ginseng with Fructus Aurantii and so on.