A Lump in a Woman’s Belly Kept Her in Bed? Doctor Zhang Xichun’s Li Chong Tang for Abdominal Mass
Search keywords: hard lump in a woman’s belly / abdominal mass / can’t get out of bed / belly pain / loss of appetite
Opening: one book, and a bureau chief who saved a patient by copying a prescription
The story Doctor Luo Dalun wants to tell today is a particularly flavorful one. In the Republican era, a bureau chief in the Shenyang tax system — relying on a single prescription from a single book — cured his colleague’s wife. And later, fired by the same enthusiasm, he went on to found China’s first hospital of Chinese medicine. The book was Records of Chinese Medicine with Western Reference by Doctor Zhang Xichun; the formula was called Li Chong Tang (Regulating the Chong Vessel Decoction).
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Zhang Xichun was from Hebei, yet a huge number of his case records took place in Shenyang in the northeast — which happens to be Doctor Luo’s own hometown. Why? It all starts with how this book was published. The moment it appeared, people marveled: it “said what no one before had ever said” — the principles earlier doctors had never made clear, he set them out plainly.
How the book reached Shenyang: on an office desk lay the manuscript that changed the history of Chinese medicine
Doctor Zhang practiced in his home county, and as his experience piled up, he wrote it into a book. The book was not written at one go — it was written piece by piece, and whatever was finished first circulated widely among the people, who copied it and passed it around.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: In those days there was no publishing channel to speak of; good books spread by hand-copying. And it was precisely this hand-copied manuscript that changed everything.
At the time, Shenyang had an organization called the Tiandi Xinxue She (Heaven-and-Earth New Learning Society), devoted to studying new knowledge. Members of the society went to Beijing to register a patent, and there — on the very desk where patents were filed — they saw this manuscript being passed from hand to hand. One look, and they were astonished: “How can a book be this good? This sets out great principles in medicine that no one before has voiced!” They immediately contacted Doctor Zhang: could it be published? Doctor Zhang felt embarrassed: “What I’ve written is just a bit of my own experience — could it really be published?”
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You see — true masters are always this modest.
A dream: the lotus crown, and Doctor Zhang wrote with all his might from then on
The society members urged him again and again; Doctor Zhang kept declining. But later, in a preface written by one of the members, a dream was recorded — a dream Doctor Zhang himself had dreamed: he was in a great hall, lecturing on medicine to a full house, and as he spoke, someone gently placed a lotus-shaped crown — like the ones bodhisattvas wear — upon his head.
Doctor Zhang woke and pondered: could this be a sign that the bodhisattva wanted me to teach medicine to everyone? From that day he threw himself into writing, day and night, organizing all his experience. The Shenyang members raised money, took it to Beijing, and registered the copyright — the concept of copyright already existed then. And so the book was published: this was the earliest part of Records of Chinese Medicine with Western Reference.
The seventy-year-old bureau chief, spellbound by the book
At that time Shenyang had a tax bureau chief in charge of taxation for the whole province of Liaoning. He was over seventy, fond of Chinese medicine, fond of reading. One day he came across this book and was amazed: “He says what no one before has ever said!” The case records were gripping, the analyses of the formulas thorough — from then on he read it every day.
The patient: a clerk’s wife, trapped in bed by a lump in her belly
It happened that in his bureau there was a clerk — a man who did paperwork — and this clerk’s wife fell ill: she had a lump in her belly (called zheng jia in Chinese medicine), which had persisted for several years. She had sought treatment everywhere without success, until finally she was so sick she couldn’t even get out of bed.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What is zheng jia? It’s a mass inside a woman’s belly — most often a benign lump or growth. Because of their special physiology, modern women are more prone than men to developing such masses — things like uterine fibroids and ovarian cysts — and Chinese medicine can group all of them under the category of zheng jia and treat them accordingly.
The clerk was frantic and asked the chief: “Sir, you’re the bureau chief — do you know any famous doctor? Please treat my wife! These years of failure to cure her, I worry every day.”
The chief’s decision: the Li Chong Tang from the book — copy it out for him
The chief thought it over — “This book of mine has the very formula!” Doctor Zhang Xichun had recorded just such a case, treated with Li Chong Tang. So he copied the formula out exactly as written and handed it to the clerk.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What does Li Chong Tang treat? It treats masses formed by qi and blood stasis against a background of deficient vital qi — when a person is weak, qi and blood cannot push properly, and stagnant blood congeals into a lump in the belly. The front of this formula is entirely qi-tonifying herbs, and the back pairs them with blood-breaking, stasis-dissolving herbs — tonifying and resolving in one.
The beauty of modification: remove san leng and e zhu, raise ji nei jin to four qian
Taking the prescription, the clerk adjusted it himself following the modification method in Doctor Zhang’s book: he removed san leng (sparganium) and e zhu (zedoary) — these two have a fairly fierce blood-breaking action — and raised the ji nei jin to four qian (12 g) (the original formula called for three qian, 9 g), and gave it to his wife.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is the art of copying a formula — the formula is fixed, the use of it is alive. San leng and e zhu break blood and dissolve stasis with great force; for a person whose body is too depleted, they can be set aside for a while. Ji nei jin is both medicine and food — it’s the yellow membrane lining a chicken’s gizzard; kill a chicken at the market and you have it. It is mild in nature and gentle in action, so adding a little more does no harm.
After ten-odd doses, the lump was gone
And the result? After about ten doses, the clerk’s wife recovered — the lump in her belly was gone.
Breaking down the formula: four tonics as the base, one stroke of ji nei jin as the finishing touch
How exactly is Li Chong Tang composed? Doctor Luo Dalun lays it out for everyone:
- Tonify vital qi: sheng huang qi (raw astragalus) 3 qian (9 g), dang shen (codonopsis) 2 qian (6 g), bai zhu (atractylodes) 2 qian (6 g), sheng shan yao (dried Chinese yam slices) 5 qian (15 g);
- Moisten dryness and clear heat: tian hua fen (trichosanthes root) 4 qian (12 g) to moisten dryness, zhi mu (anemarrhena) 4 qian (12 g) to clear heat — guarding against the tonics above running too hot;
- Break blood and dissolve stasis: san leng and e zhu 3 qian (9 g) each (they dissolve accumulations without harming vital qi) plus sheng ji nei jin 3 qian (9 g) — the yellow kind.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: San leng and e zhu are two herbs Doctor Zhang Xichun used with particular mastery — they dissolve accumulations yet do not harm vital qi. Paired with the four tonics up front, the logic of this formula is crystal clear: first make the vital qi sufficient, then dissolve stasis with confidence. TCM doctors today still frequently prescribe Li Chong Tang for this kind of mass.
The passage Qi Ziyun wrote into the book
The bureau chief was overjoyed and bought many copies of Records of Chinese Medicine with Western Reference to give to friends. Later he wrote a passage into the book, preserved in black and white (paraphrased) —
I had never met him. At the time I was bureau chief of the Shenyang tax office. After the book came out, I bought a copy and read it: much of it says what no one before has ever said — what a remarkable doctor! Just then, a man’s wife had suffered from zheng jia for several years; many doctors had been consulted, her appetite diminished day by day, her belly ached, masses could be felt all over it, and she lay tangled in her bedding, unable to rise. He asked me for a formula, so I copied out the Li Chong Tang from the book and gave it to him. After ten-odd doses, her appetite grew day by day, and the illness slowly healed. For this reason I came to believe all the more in Doctor Zhang Xichun’s formulas — truly marvelous, exactly as written!
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This passage was written by the bureau chief Qi Ziyun himself — he was the Fengtian tax bureau chief and a devoted fan of Doctor Zhang Xichun (courtesy name Shoufu). This record is also the earliest published account of a successful Li Chong Tang case.
China’s first hospital of Chinese medicine: how the Lida Hospital came to be
Having cured his colleague’s wife, Qi Ziyun was “delighted beyond words.” He joined forces with Liu Haiquan, secretary of the marshal’s office, and members of the Tiandi Xinxue She, and they discussed: let’s found a hospital of Chinese medicine! They pooled funds to build it and wrote to invite Doctor Zhang Xichun to come as director — this was the Lida Hospital of Chinese Medicine, the earliest recorded large-scale TCM hospital in China.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Previously, Chinese medicine was practiced in outpatient clinics — the doctor wrote the prescription and left. A hospital is different: patients stay inside, and the doctor can observe the changes of the illness day by day. Doctor Zhang came to Shenyang as director, and from then on left behind a vast store of precious case records. Shenyang is Doctor Luo’s hometown, and every time he reaches this part of the story he is especially moved.
Doctor Luo’s reflection: without Qi Ziyun, these case records would not exist
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Look at this — in the Republican era, this tax official not only managed taxes, he also went out of his way to relieve people’s suffering. I think Mr. Qi Ziyun truly deserves our admiration. Had he not taken the initiative to found the hospital, Doctor Zhang Xichun might not have left us so many case records. These records are the most precious treasure of Chinese medicine.
As for the wonderful workings of the raw ji nei jin in Li Chong Tang, and why this formula can treat such a disease, Doctor Luo Dalun says he will analyze it piece by piece in the coming days. For today, we’ll stop here.
Arranged from Doctor Luo Dalun’s lectures on Doctor Zhang Xichun’s case records; the case comes from Records of Chinese Medicine with Western Reference.