Vomiting Acid and Drooling, Nausea at the Smell of Food — Worse the More You Clear Heat? How Doctor Xue Lizhai Rescued a Dying Woman by Warming the Spleen
People search for: vomiting acid / acid reflux / spitting sour water / drooling / saliva running nonstop / can’t stop drooling / nauseated by the smell of food / can’t eat / fever / bloated belly
The medical terms behind it: spleen deficiency with cold in the middle · spleen-stomach deficiency cold · true cold with false heat · yang qi on the verge of collapse
Opening: a life-saving case record written by the patient’s own son
Most of Doctor Xue Lizhai’s case records were written by the doctor himself. But a few are special — they were written by the patient’s family. After a patient was cured, the grateful relatives — many of them scholars with a fine literary hand — would write down the entire course of treatment from beginning to end. Today’s case is exactly that: a scholar named Shen Daya recorded in his own words how Doctor Xue Lizhai rescued his dying mother.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Case records like this are precious. When a doctor writes up his own case, he usually keeps it to a few sentences. But when the family writes it, we get the whole story — how the patient fell ill, how it was treated, how the crisis was turned around — and we can see Doctor Xue Lizhai’s complete way of thinking laid out clearly before us.
Who was the patient: a 42-year-old mother, in the seventh month of the Jiajing reign
Shen Daya’s mother was 42 that year. In the seventh month of the renyin year of the Jiajing reign (1542, the twenty-first year), she fell ill with pi xu zhong man — spleen deficiency with fullness in the middle: her spleen and stomach were weak, the middle burner was distended, and her belly was bloated; and tan sou fa re — profuse phlegm, coughing, and fever. And right at that moment she happened to eat wheat-noodle food and drink cold tea — and with that, the illness turned acute: tun suan, ou tu, jue shi — she regurgitated acid, vomited, and completely stopped being able to eat.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This lady’s foundation was spleen deficiency — a weak spleen cannot transport and transform water-dampness, so the dampness sits in the middle and causes bloating; when dampness turns to phlegm, she coughs up phlegm. Then on top of that she ate noodles and drank cold tea — pouring more trouble onto an already weak spleen and stomach. The stomach qi rebelled, and the acid came surging up.
Mistake one: she had a fever, so clear the heat — huang qin, huang lian and qing pi, all at once
When she was this ill, what did the first doctors do? They saw the fever and immediately pronounced: there is heat! So huang qin (scutellaria) and huang lian (coptis) to clear heat, qing pi (green tangerine peel) to move the qi — a whole barrage of cold, cooling herbs went in.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This was the most common practice of the time — see heat, clear it. But the question is: was it really heat? The result: the chills and fever got worse than ever. When she was not feverish she was freezing cold; when the fever came she burned; cold and hot by turns.
The medicine did not help — it added new symptoms: kou gan, liu xian bu shou — her mouth was dry, yet saliva poured out of it nonstop and could not be held back; she was zuo ke — desperately thirsty; and worst of all, wen shi zuo ou — the mere smell of food made her retch. This had been going on for several days already.
Doctor Xue Lizhai arrives: one sentence cuts to the root — the spleen governs saliva
At their wit’s end, the family called in Doctor Xue Lizhai. One look, and he named the key in a single sentence: pi zhu xian — the spleen governs saliva. Why could the saliva not be held back? Because a deficient spleen loses its restraining power — when spleen qi is weak, it can no longer govern the fluids of the mouth, and the saliva simply runs out on its own.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Chinese medicine says "the spleen manifests in the fluids as xian" — xian means saliva. When spleen qi is ample, the saliva is held back when it should be. When spleen qi is deficient, it is like a door latch that has come loose — the saliva just walks out by itself. So Doctor Xue Lizhai’s direction was clear: tonify the spleen. The formula he drafted at that first visit was something like Ren Shen An Wei San (Ginseng Stomach-Settling Powder) — a formula that builds up the spleen and stomach.
But — and here is the most twisting part of the story — Shen Daya had called in Doctor Xue Lizhai, and then he did not believe him.
Mistake two: the famous doctor was invited, but the crowd of physicians was trusted instead
The other doctors gathered around and insisted: there is food-fire in the stomach channel, and food stagnation stuck inside — we must clear fire and disperse stagnation! With so many voices so loud, Shen Daya wavered: maybe the other doctors were right? So he went back to the heat-clearing medicines.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Xue Lizhai had been invited — and then Shen Daya did not trust him, and trusted the other doctors instead. That decision cost his mother dearly. What happened? bing ri zeng ju — the illness grew heavier day by day.
A piece of winter melon the size of a fingernail — and the vomiting would not stop
How grave did it become? His mother suddenly craved winter melon and ate a piece no bigger than a fingernail. Just that one tiny bite — and immediately she vomited violently, acid water pouring out without stop.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Some people may think this is exaggerated: winter melon, of all things? But it really is not an exaggeration. When the body is weakened to a certain point, even a tiny external stimulus triggers a violent reaction. Many patients tell me: "I only drank one mouthful of cold water and my whole stomach turned to ice." That is not psychological — the body is so weak that the slightest breeze sets off an earthquake.
And through all of this, those doctors kept feeding her cold, cooling herbs like huang lian and huang qin — and of course it only got worse.
Mistake three: the cold medicines went down, and soon the only thing that could move was her eyes
There was nothing to do but call Doctor Xue Lizhai again. By now, what state was she in? Shen tuo mai jue, bin si — her spirit was scattering, her pulse no longer held any thread of life, she was basically unconscious and near death, only her eyes could still move, faintly, from side to side.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is the price of mistreatment. For a person whose body is already weak, cold and cooling herbs are the most dangerous thing of all — the moment they go in, yang qi is badly wounded, the primal qi collapses, and the patient walks to the gate of the ghost realm. Everyone must be extremely careful with medicines.
The three emergency moves: when the medicine cannot go down, treat from the outside
Doctor Xue Lizhai’s verdict: han yuan yu nei, zhi yi xin re — the cold originates from within, so treat it with acrid-hot [medicines]: this body was cold to the bone, and only acrid-hot herbs could pull the yang back. But there was a problem: the medicine could no longer be poured down — she was unconscious, her mouth would not open. So Doctor Xue Lizhai pulled out his three emergency moves, all external:
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The first move — stir-fry salt, mugwort leaves (ai ye) and aconite (fu zi) together until hot, and apply them to the navel and abdomen — dispersing cold and restoring yang, pulling the yang back as fast as possible. The second move — have a strong, healthy person blow warm breath into the patient’s mouth, sending heat in. The third move — make the aconite into a cake and press it, hot, onto the navel. Three moves together, and after about two hours (shi xu), shen qi shao shu — her spirit and qi began to ease! She was coming back.
The mouth-melting method: pills the size of millet grains — and the vomiting stopped on its own
She had revived, but she still could not take medicine. Doctor Xue Lizhai produced another trick — the mouth-melting method (han hua fa): grind ren shen (ginseng), bai zhu (atractylodes) and fu zi (aconite) into a fine powder, bind them into pills with a paste made from boiled-down chen pi (aged tangerine peel), shape them the size of millet grains, and place five to seven grains in the mouth at a time — they dissolve slowly in the saliva and go down by themselves.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The wonder of it: the moment these pills were held in the mouth, she stopped vomiting! This woman who vomited at the smell of food, who retched at everything, quietly swallowed these millet-sized pills. Two days later the dose was raised to more than ten grains; five days later she began drinking a decoction of ren shen, bai zhu and fu zi with chen pi. Her stomach qi slowly recovered and she could drink congee again. From then on she was warmed and tonified with ren shen, bai zhu and similar herbs — more than fifty doses in all, and the illness was completely cured. You see what the mouth-melting method is like? It is exactly the principle of modern Su Xiao Jiu Xin Wan (quick-acting heart-saving pills) — when the medicine cannot be swallowed, hold it in the mouth and let it dissolve; it still does its work.
What the son wrote at the end of the book
After his mother recovered, Shen Daya wrote down the whole course of events and asked that the account be appended to the end of Doctor Xue Lizhai’s book — partly out of gratitude, and partly to tell every future patient: dang qu fa yu ci — this is a method to learn from. He signed it "dun shou bai shu" — respectfully bowing his head as he wrote.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He wrote, "I dare to set down the strangeness of the illness and the marvel of the medicine" — he dared to record such an extraordinary case and such remarkable treatment, staking his own reputation on it. Case records written by the patient’s own family are a unique and precious category among Doctor Xue Lizhai’s more than three thousand cases.
Doctor Luo’s reminders: three points to keep in your heart
First — a deficient spleen really can produce fever. Li Dongyuan said it long ago: when the spleen is deficient and qi is insufficient, a deficiency-heat arises. This kind of heat is an illusion — true cold with false heat. Doctor Xue Lizhai’s case records are full of patients who "looked like they had fire but were really deficient cold." If the overall direction of treatment is wrong, the consequences are severe.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why did so many doctors get it wrong back then? Because tongue diagnosis had not yet spread — most physicians did not know how to read the tongue. The tongue of a cold pattern is pale; the tongue of a heat pattern is red — one look settles it. Later, Doctor Xue Lizhai had the great tongue-diagnosis monograph printed and published, and only from that point did tongue diagnosis really develop. In this, he was a bridge between past and future — his contribution was immense.
Second — there are many ways to warm the yang, and external treatment can save a life just as well. If medicine cannot be swallowed, there is still the salt-mugwort-aconite pack on the navel, the aconite cake on the navel, the mouth-melting method, sublingual holding… any of these can work. As long as the direction is right, the more methods the better.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The same is true today — a child who catches cold can wear a Ding Gui Er Qi Tie (navel-warming patch) on the belly button; an adult with yang deficiency and cold congealed in the abdomen can make a paste of warming herbs like huajiao (Sichuan pepper), ai ye (mugwort), ding xiang (clove) and rou gui (cinnamon), stick it on the navel, or wear a warming waistband. Never underestimate external treatment. And sublingual absorption is even faster — the principle is exactly the same as the mouth-melting method.
Third — Chinese medicine has always been correcting its own excesses. In the Jin-Yuan period, great physicians like Liu Hejian championed cold and cooling methods, and later doctors followed along until cooling herbs became wildly overused. By Doctor Xue Lizhai’s time, he saw the harm that excessive coldness did to people, and he vigorously advocated warming and tonifying to correct the trend.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The history of Chinese medicine is a history of constant correction — a great physician proposes an idea, later doctors run with it, often too far, and then another great physician comes along to pull it back. Doctor Xue Lizhai is the representative of the warming-and-tonifying school: he valued the spleen and kidneys, excelled at warming and tonifying, and above all was a master of distinguishing true cold with false heat — this is the core of his medical thought, and everyone should remember it.
What to take away
- The spleen governs saliva. When saliva runs out of the mouth uncontrollably, think of spleen deficiency first — the latch is loose because spleen qi is weak.
- A deficient spleen really can produce fever. This is "true cold with false heat" — the fever is an illusion; the cold inside is the truth. Getting this direction wrong can cost a life.
- When medicines cannot be swallowed, treat from the outside. Hot salt, mugwort and aconite packed on the navel, aconite cakes, blowing warm breath in, mouth-melting pills, sublingual holding — as long as the direction is right, every method counts.
- The mouth-melting method works like modern quick-acting heart pills: tiny ginseng-atractylodes-aconite pills dissolved slowly in the mouth can stop vomiting even when the patient cannot take anything by mouth.
- A body weakened to the extreme reacts violently to the smallest stimulus — one fingernail-sized piece of winter melon triggered unstoppable vomiting. When patients say "one sip of cold water and my whole stomach froze," take them seriously.
- Family-written case records are treasures. They preserve the full arc of an illness — how it began, how it was mistreated, how the crisis was turned — and let us see the doctor’s complete reasoning.
- Doctor Xue Lizhai’s legacy: the representative of the warming-and-tonifying school, master of distinguishing true cold with false heat, and the man who published the first monograph on tongue diagnosis for the whole world.
Retold from Doctor Luo Dalun’s lecture on Doctor Xue Lizhai’s case records. The original case is from the Xue’s Case Records (《薛氏医案》) by Xue Ji (Doctor Xue Lizhai), Ming dynasty.