A Boil on the Arm, Poison Fire Attacking the Heart, and Unconsciousness: Doctor Zhang Xichun Used Antelope Horn to Drain Liver Fire
Opening: an old lady on the edge of death, brought back with a single dose
Today’s patient was a person of considerable standing — Madame Han Fangchen, wife of the Vice Minister of the Fengtian (Mukden) Army, known as the Grand Lady, in her sixties. By the time Doctor Zhang Xichun saw her, she was unconscious, her breath barely a thread, and the Japanese doctors had already thrown up their hands. Yet Zhang Xichun first brought her back with a bowl of borax water, then a single herb — antelope horn — and one dose cured the illness.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Notice how Zhang Xichun wrote out the names and identities of his patients — that was the custom of the time, his way of telling everyone: these cases of mine are reliable, not invented. He was very specific about people and events, and the authenticity of his records is very high.
The root of the illness: a ding sore on the arm, made worse by the surgeon
The Grand Lady’s illness began as nothing more than a ding sore (ding du) that grew on her arm. What is a ding sore? Its tip is not large, but the root buried inside is big, and the area around it is hard to the touch — it belongs to the same family as boils, yet it is far more serious than an ordinary boil.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: With a ding sore, the treatment absolutely must let the poison move outward. But the surgeon they called in was not skillful, and as he treated and treated, he drove the poison inward instead — poison fire attacking internally — and the body collapsed all at once.
The illness turned suddenly: phlegm surged up, and she fainted
Once the poison fire turned inward, the Grand Lady began to have hot phlegm surging upward (re tan shang yong): the phlegm kept rising, she panted until her whole chest felt packed full, and in the end she lost consciousness entirely — she simply fainted.
At that moment, Han Fangchen was overseeing the Shenyang Arsenal. He hurriedly called in several Japanese doctors (in those days called “Eastern doctors,” dong yi) to treat her. They worked at it for a long time without success, until the Japanese doctors were at a loss and finally washed their hands of it: “We cannot treat this. Go find someone else.” The Grand Lady’s breathing grew fainter and fainter, and it looked as though she was about to die.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Pay attention to this detail — it was only after Western medicine could not cure her and gave up that Chinese medicine got its turn. Zhang Xichun proved himself again and again in exactly this kind of situation. The old lady’s condition had reached the extreme of danger; it tested the doctor’s courage and his eye for diagnosis.
First move: borax water poured in, phlegm vomited out, and she woke
The family urgently invited Doctor Zhang Xichun to the Lida Hospital of Chinese Medicine (Lida Zhongyiyuan) — the first full-scale hospital of Chinese medicine in China, right there in Shenyang, founded by Zhang Xichun himself.
Zhang Xichun took one look and made a clear diagnosis: phlegm reversal (tan jue). Phlegm had blocked the airways, interfering with breathing, and had also clouded the mind — that is why she had fainted. What was to be done? Transform the phlegm. He used borax, five qian (about 15 g), boiled it in water until it dissolved, and poured it into the Grand Lady’s mouth. After about two-thirds of the jar had gone in, in a little while she began to vomit — and a great deal of phlegm came up. All at once she suddenly, completely woke up!
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: See how Zhang Xichun treated illness in layers: first he resolved the life-threatening emergency and brought the person back, and only then did he return to treat the ding sore on the arm. In a critical moment, save life first — this is the great principle of emergency care in Chinese medicine.
Second move: feeling the pulse revealed the root — the liver fire
With the patient awake, he turned to the arm. The ding sore was on the left arm, and when Zhang Xichun felt her pulse: the left pulse was big and tight (hong da er jin) compared to the right — big and tight at once. He judged: this is blazing liver fire, giving rise to a toxic swelling.
Why connect it to liver fire? There is a reasoned principle behind it in Chinese medicine: liver qi rises on the left, while the gallbladder and stomach descend on the right — hence the saying, “left and right are the pathways of yin and yang.” If a problem on the left side carries fire with it, the cause is often excess liver fire. Look again at the pulse: the left pulse corresponds to the heart, liver and kidney; the right pulse corresponds to the lung, spleen and life gate (ming men) — and the liver pulse sits precisely on the left. When liver fire is exuberant on the left, the left pulse feels especially large.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is Zhang Xichun’s skill at pulse diagnosis: the illness was on the left arm, the pulse at the left guan position, the left pulse big and tight — the chain of evidence for blazing liver fire is perfectly clear. Chinese medicine does not treat the head when the head hurts; it hunts for the root in the pulse, the channels, and the ascending and descending of qi.
The prescription revealed: one herb — antelope horn — drained the liver fire, and one dose cured it
Once the mechanism was clear, the formula was simple. Zhang Xichun wrote out a formula to clear fire and resolve toxins, and then decocted antelope horn (ling yang jiao), two qian (about 6 g), on its own, mixed it into the previous medicine, and had the Grand Lady drink it.
And the result? One dose cured it! A single dose of medicine, and the illness was gone.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: A ding sore this severe cured in one dose — sounds like bragging, doesn’t it? It is not. When the medicine is right, once the fire is drained, look the next morning and the head of the sore has dried up; the surrounding redness slowly turns dark red — the poison has dispersed and withdrawn. That is what “one dose cured it” means. Zhang Xichun’s cases never brag.
Why did he dare write the patient’s real name? That is the credibility of the case record
Think about it: why would Zhang Xichun dare to write out in full, “Madame Han Fangchen, wife of the Vice Minister of the Fengtian Army”? Han Fangchen was one of Zhang Zuolin’s men, and Shenyang was Zhang Zuolin’s territory — on somebody else’s turf, if you announced that you had cured the Vice Minister’s mother and you had not, would you want to go on living?
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What is more, Zhang Xichun at that time exchanged a great many antiphonal poems with local celebrities and patients, writing verses back and forth, and socialized very widely. From all this material, Zhang Xichun indeed enjoyed very high prestige in Shenyang — and where did that prestige come from? It came from extraordinarily good treatment results, recognized by everyone.
Bonus: Doctor Luo Dalun’s own experience with the “surrounding application” method
Speaking of letting the poison move outward, Doctor Luo Dalun told a story from his own life. When he was a child, his father grew a boil on his neck, and his mother applied Unicorn Horn Plaster (du jiao gao) on it — and the poison, instead of coming out, went inward. Later, at the hospital, the boil festered inward and worked a very deep hole.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Even back then I was thinking: going inward like this will never do — we have to make it go outward. Later, in middle school, I hit on a method: crush some Liu Shen Wan (Six Spirit Pills) — originally a remedy for sore throats — mix the powder with water into a paste, and spread it around the boil, always leaving a spot in the middle — keep the head of the boil exposed, do not cover it. Let the poison come out through the center. And what happened? It worked every single time. When I got to university, anyone on our dorm floor who grew a boil on the neck or the buttocks would come to me, and usually the boil would draw back within a single night — why? Because the poison came out. Later, when I read the ancient medical books, I found that the ancients had this method long before me — it is called the surrounding application method (wei yao fa, also gu wei fa) — ancient surgeons had already thought of it.
What to take away today?
The lesson of this case is very practical: if toxic heat erupts on the left side of the body, it is very likely caused by blazing liver fire. In that situation, besides herbs that clear heat, resolve toxins and disperse hard lumps, antelope horn is a herb that drains liver fire with particular effectiveness, and without the drawback of harsh coldness — that is the point most worth remembering today.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Know this one point, and today’s talk has already paid for itself. Tomorrow we will continue with how Doctor Zhang Xichun used this single herb, antelope horn.
Arranged from Doctor Luo Dalun’s commentary on Doctor Zhang Xichun’s case records; the case originates from Records of Chinese Medicine with Reference to Western Medicine (《医学衷中参西录》), published in installments 1918–1934.