Child with High Fever, Convulsions and Eyes Rolling Up? Doctor Zhang Xichun Used Antelope Horn Alone to Stop the Seizures
Opening: a five-year-old convulsing — the whole family terrified
Today’s story takes place in Cangzhou during the Republican era. The patient was the son of Zhao Chunshan, a clerk at the Cangzhou River Affairs Bureau, just five years old. This child did not have an ordinary cold — he had a warm disease (wen bing). In ancient Chinese medicine, externally contracted illnesses are divided into two great families: cold damage (shang han) and warm disease (wen bing). A warm disease is what happens when a warm-heat pathogen from the outside enters the body and sets off a series of heat symptoms.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Exogenous diseases being divided into cold damage and warm disease is the basic framework of Chinese medicine. The hallmark of warm disease is heat — when the warm-heat pathogen enters, the person first runs a fever, and when the fever burns high enough, all kinds of heat signs appear.
What is the most obvious symptom of a warm disease? High fever. This child’s fever climbed to the point where he started convulsing — his body twitching and jerking violently. Worse still, it progressed to opisthotonos: his head bent backward and his eyes rolled up. In the end, the child grew drowsy and heavy-eyed — his mind had begun to cloud, and when his family called him, he no longer responded.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Notice the chain of progression: high fever → convulsions → opisthotonos (head back, eyes up) → unconsciousness. This is what Chinese medicine calls extreme heat stirring wind — liver wind in motion: when heat reaches its peak, it stirs the liver wind, and the child convulses.
Any household would erupt in panic at such a scene. The whole family was terrified beyond measure — afraid the child could not be saved, that this might be the end. They hurriedly invited Doctor Zhang Xichun to come.
The pulse told the story: the disease was in the governing vessel, injuring the brain
Doctor Zhang Xichun felt the child’s pulse: it was extremely forceful, leaping and bounding. He pressed the skin — the flesh was burning hot to the touch. He understood at once, and told the family: this illness is warm-disease qi traveling upward along the governing vessel (du mai) and injuring the brain — because the brain was affected, the child convulsed; because the brain was affected, he slept heavily.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Zhang Xichun said that in the Western medicine of his day, this disease would have been called cerebrospinal meningitis. But today we won’t pass judgment — Zhang Xichun knew Western medicine, but the Western medicine of that time was not what it is today, and we have no idea how deep his knowledge went. Let us simply look at how Chinese medicine treated it.
Then Zhang Xichun said something with great weight: this disease looks dangerous, but it is actually easy to treat. How could he dare say such a thing? Because he had read the mechanism precisely — the warm-heat pathogen was traveling up the governing vessel and injuring the brain. Once the mechanism is clear, the treatment becomes simple.
The decisive move: antelope horn alone, two qian — convulsions stopped on the spot
What was the treatment? Zhang Xichun’s plan was clean and direct: antelope horn (ling yang jiao) alone, two qian (about 6 g), decocted as a soup. He took two qian of antelope horn, boiled it into a single cup of decoction, and then fed it to the child in small portions, one after another — a little at a time, poured in bit by bit.
And the result? The convulsions stopped, and the child’s spirits improved greatly.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You see, what does antelope horn do? It vents heat and drains liver fire. The child’s extreme heat stirred the wind — the moment liver wind moved, he convulsed. Antelope horn pushed the heat out and drained the liver fire; once the wind settled, the convulsions ceased. This is seizing the main contradiction — resolve the life-threatening emergency first.
The follow-up: gypsum, xuan shen, mint and forsythia — one dose, pulse calm and body cool
The convulsions had stopped, but the fever had not fully broken. Zhang Xichun then wrote a formula to clear heat and vent the pathogen: raw gypsum (sheng shi gao) and xuan shen (figwort root), one liang (about 30 g) each, plus mint leaf (bo he) and forsythia (lian qiao), one qian (about 3 g) each, decocted into one large cup, divided into several portions, and given to the child warm — not cold, but warm.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: These four herbs each have their role: raw gypsum clears heat and vents the pathogen — the vanguard; xuan shen nourishes yin and clears heat, assisting the gypsum; mint leaf is acrid and cool, venting the pathogen outward; forsythia clears heat and resolves toxins. Together the four herbs push the remaining warm-heat pathogen outward.
And the result? After just one dose, the child was pulse calm and body cool (mai jing shen liang).
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: “Pulse calm and body cool” — these four characters are the classic ancient phrase for recovery from a warm disease. The pulse had been leaping and bounding; now it was steady. The body was no longer hot; the fever had broken. This is what a cured warm disease looks like. The whole course: antelope horn stopped the convulsions, the four herbs cleared the residual heat — the layers of treatment were perfectly distinct.
Children today run fevers too — and they convulse as well
At this point, Doctor Luo Dalun adds: today’s children, when a high fever reaches a certain point, truly do convulse, and can even convulse so hard their eyes roll up. He has seen stories from his followers — a father watching his child convulse, crying from sheer fright — never having seen a child convulse before, thinking “Oh my god, is this going to be all right?” and being terrified out of his wits.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: One of Doctor Luo’s own college classmates asked him the same question: what do you do when a child convulses? Folks, this is simply what happens when a child’s high fever climbs high enough — convulsions are common. And there is a pattern: once a child has convulsed, the next cold with high fever may bring convulsions again. What to do then? In fact, the single most important herb is this antelope horn. When Chinese medicine treats this kind of condition, the formula very often includes antelope horn.
A second case: a one-year-old with tonsillitis who couldn’t nurse
Zhang Xichun recorded another case: the youngest son of Liu Yaohua of Xingyebuzhuang, Cangzhou, who had just turned one year old, and suffered from tonsillitis — a throat condition (hou zheng): the tonsils were swollen. It was also an exogenous warm disease, and the child could not take milk — he couldn’t even drink breast milk. When it grew severe, his breathing labored — why? The tonsils were blocking the passage. And look at the symptoms: his eyes were rolling upward too, showing the warm disease had already grown very fierce.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Notice — here again are “eyes rolling upward.” This is the signal of liver wind stirring: the heat has already roused the liver wind, and this is an emergency.
What was to be done? Zhang Xichun urgently used antelope horn, one qian (about 3 g) — for a child of barely one year, one qian — decocted into a bit more than half a cup and fed to the child in small amounts. In a moment, the breathing opened up, and the child could nurse again, feeding normally.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You see, in exogenous diseases of this kind — liver wind stirring, child convulsing, eyes rolling up — Chinese medicine formulas very often add antelope horn, and sometimes use antelope horn alone. Parents who know about this condition and this herb can actually use antelope horn alone as an emergency measure — boil a little water and feed it — and it can help the child shake off these dangerous symptoms. This is Zhang Xichun’s experience.
Summary: a child with fever and convulsions — Chinese medicine calls it acute fright wind
These two cases today teach the same lesson: when children contract an exogenous warm-heat illness, in severe cases convulsions appear — Chinese medicine calls this acute fright wind (ji jing feng) — with eyes rolling up and convulsions. In managing this kind of symptom, antelope horn plays a unique role.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Knowing this, today’s study has already paid off. Zhang Xichun’s experience using antelope horn to treat acute fright wind in children with warm disease is worth every parent remembering — but if you truly need to use medicine, please let a physician differentiate the pattern and prescribe properly. Keeping the herb at home for emergencies is fine, but don’t let it delay proper treatment.
Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s lectures on Doctor Zhang Xichun’s case records; the case comes from Records of Chinese Medicine with Reference to Western Medicine (《医学衷中参西录》), published in installments from 1918 to 1934.