Traditional Chinese medicine bath has existed since ancient times. The earliest medical prescription in China, Fifty-two Diseases Prescription, contains a medicated bath prescription for treating children's epilepsy. In The Book of Rites, it is said that "if you have a sore on your head, you should take a bath if you have a choice", while in Huangdi Neijing, it is recorded that "those who suffer from external evils think that they are sweating". It can be said that the history of medicated bath has a long history, which began in the Qin Dynasty, developed in the Han and Tang Dynasties, enriched in the Song and Ming Dynasties and matured in the Qing Dynasty.
Medicinal bath can be divided into local medicinal bath and systemic medicinal bath. Feet and calves are mostly used as soaking parts. Foot is an important starting and ending part of activating qi and blood, connecting viscera and communicating internal and external meridians. Foot Sanyang Meridian and Foot Yin San Meridian meet here. The foot has viscera and whole body reflex zone, 52 bones and more than 60 muscles, which is known as "the second heart of human body", while the cuticle of the calf is thin, with blood vessels and nerves. The whole body medicated bath is used to soak and fumigate other parts of the whole body except the head and neck, which has a larger area of action and higher drug utilization rate, and is suitable for systemic diseases with a wide range of lesions.
Skin is the largest organ of human body, which has many functions such as secretion, absorption, infiltration, excretion, feeling and so on. Medicated bath therapy uses the physiological characteristics of skin to treat diseases, and its mechanism is nothing more than local action and overall action. The local effect is that drugs directly act on the muscle surface, muscles and joints, improve the metabolism of skin, muscles and joints, restore their functions, and directly play a therapeutic role against the disease location and etiology; Holistic treatment is to enter the blood through transdermal absorption of drugs, and to regulate the viscera function by regulating the whole body's yin and Yang Qi and blood.
Modern research shows that the drug ions in the medicated bath liquid enter the body through absorption, diffusion and radiation of skin and mucosa, which avoids the first-pass effect of the liver, increases the effective drug concentration in the local area of the lesion, and directly plays a therapeutic role on the cause and the site of the disease. At the same time, damp-heat stimulation causes local vasodilation, promotes local and systemic blood circulation and lymphatic circulation, makes metabolism vigorous, improves local tissue nutrition and systemic function, and thus makes the disease heal.
Medicinal bath therapy can achieve the effects of regulating qi and blood, balancing yin and yang, dredging channels and activating collaterals, eliminating pathogenic factors and regulating middle warmer, warming channels and dispelling cold, expelling wind and removing dampness, clearing away heat and toxic materials, relieving swelling and resolving hard mass, dredging collaterals and relieving pain, nourishing skin and promoting granulation, and caring skin and health. It can not only treat rheumatic diseases such as scleroderma, polymyositis and rheumatoid arthritis.