Child Convulsed and Passed Out After Eating Too Much Cold Food? What to Do?

What people search for: child convulsion / rolling eyes / fever with red face / diarrhea that won’t stop / infantile convulsion (jing feng) / child collapsed after eating too much cold food

Medical terms for this condition: slow spleen wind (man pi feng) · slow fright wind (man jing feng) · spleen and stomach yang deficiency · false heat with true cold

Opening scene: this case is the “companion piece” to yesterday’s

The great late-Ming–early-Qing physician Doctor Yu Jiayan had just saved a child who fell into a pond — that child had been treated as frightened, force-fed heavy, cold, heat-clearing medicines, and had fallen into a coma; Doctor Yu Jiayan slowly warmed the yang back with warming medicines and the child lived. Today’s case is meant to be read together with that one, because the root of the illness is almost identical.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Both cases involve children, both were damaged by cold medicines, and both were rescued by warming yang. Listen to these two cases side by side and you will understand the single most important thing Doctor Yu Jiayan wanted everyone to know — sometimes what looks like heat is false heat; the real problem is insufficient yang, and in that situation you must never casually use cold, cooling medicines.

A child born late: “afraid to hold him in the mouth in case he melts”

The family name was Sha, and the father was called Sha Wuyi — he was the cousin of Wang Sheng, one of Doctor Yu Jiayan’s disciples. This Mr. Sha had become a father very late in life, and had waited a very long time for this child.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Those four words — “had the child very late” — tell you two things right away. First, the parents were older, their upright qi (zheng qi) was beginning to wane, so the child was born with somewhat weaker constitution and less inherited qi. Second, having finally gotten this treasure, the parents indulged him completely — afraid he’d fall if held in the palm, afraid he’d melt if held in the mouth — whatever he wanted to eat, they gave him.

Eating cold food every day — and one day it all went wrong

Children’s yang is naturally abundant, and this boy loved cold things. Eating normally would have been fine, but this child craved raw and cold foods every single day. Then one day he ate too much and it all went wrong — “wa!” he vomited it all up, and after vomiting, his body suddenly went rigid. He lost consciousness and collapsed into a coma.

The family quickly called a physician. The physician took one look and said: isn’t this “acute fright wind” (ji jing feng)? So he treated it as fright wind, using “fright-wind medicines.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What were the “fright-wind medicines”? When pediatric medicine was first being established in the old days, many formulas contained mineral and metal substances — mercury, cinnabar (zhu sha, vermilion), qing fen (calomel), even bits of crushed silver — some of them toxic, plus powerful drugs like niu huang (ox bezoar). Made into pills and given to children in those days, some did work, but the toxicity was real. Such formulas appear in the book of the Song-dynasty pediatrician Qian Yi, and people were still using them in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. Doctor Yu Jiayan was one of the earliest voices of opposition — he kept saying: these medicines must not be used. Chinese medicine is not frozen in time; it advances through continuous exploration — and in time these toxic mineral drugs were gradually eliminated. Today we basically no longer use them.

Treated as acute fright wind — and got worse and worse

The result of this treatment: the child was now in terrible shape — his whole body blazed with fever, his face flushed red as if painted with vermilion, his eyes rolled up into his head showing only the whites, his lips quivered, and he had uncontrollable diarrhea, soiling the whole bed with filth.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Pay attention — this is the typical consequence of “fright-wind medicines” seriously injuring the spleen and stomach. The child was already weak; after vomiting, his upright qi was badly depleted, and then the physician hit him with such strong, cold medicines — it was as if he was injured a second time. By this point the boy was nearly gone, showing only terminal signs.

The family was terrified. They ran to where Doctor Yu Jiayan was staying and knelt on the ground begging him to come look. Doctor Yu Jiayan had that kind of warm heart — no need to kneel; if a case is serious, he would certainly go.

Doctor Yu Jiayan arrives: this is “slow spleen wind” (man pi feng)

Doctor Yu Jiayan examined the pulse and said: this is “slow spleen wind” (a form of slow fright wind) — long-term injury to the spleen and stomach, especially to their yang qi, causing the ceaseless slippery diarrhea.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Let me sort out the term “fright wind” (jing feng) so nobody gets confused. Jing feng is a general name for convulsions and unconsciousness in children — some come from external infections (such as severe infections or meningitis), some from internal injuries (such as epilepsy). Acute fright wind (ji jing feng) is the acute onset — for example, many children today convulse and lose consciousness after a high fever from a cold; that belongs to acute fright wind. Slow fright wind (man jing feng) is the convulsing and unconsciousness that recurs in a child who was already weak and had chronic illness. If slow fright wind is not controlled, the spleen and stomach are damaged more and more, the upright qi gets weaker and weaker, and the condition enters the slow spleen wind (man pi feng) stage — the yang of the spleen and stomach is severely damaged, with uncontrollable slippery diarrhea. Although Doctor Yu Jiayan objected to the label “fright wind,” his way of treating it was actually the same as everyone else’s.

After the diagnosis, Doctor Yu Jiayan stated the terms clearly up front: I have a method that can save him, but it will take seven days for the child to wake up. If you don’t trust me deeply, and after five days of treatment you see he hasn’t woken and change doctors — that doctor will fail to see what’s really going on, and in the end the blame for the wrong medicine will all be pushed onto me. That would not be good.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Yu Jiayan knew what he was doing — he dared to say “he will wake on the seventh day” because he was confident. But he also knew that switching doctors mid-treatment ruins everything — when the relatives and in-laws start gossiping, the treatment that was so hard to establish gets broken off.

Wu Xie Si Jun Zi Tang: warm yang and scatter cold on one side, calm wind and strengthen the spleen on the other

At this point the disciple Wang Sheng stepped forward: Master, I beg you to let me go to their house and supervise the medication. I’ll decoct the medicine for them and bolster their courage at the same time; they’ll listen to me. Please just write the prescription with an easy mind!

Seeing his disciple on the scene, Doctor Yu Jiayan prescribed the Wu Xie Si Jun Zi Tang — Aconite-Scorpion Four Gentlemen Decoction: chuan wu (aconite root) to warm yang and scatter cold, plus scorpion to calm wind and unblock the collaterals, combined with Si Jun Zi Tang (Four Gentlemen Decoction) — ren shen (ginseng), bai zhu (white atractylodes), fu ling (poria), and zhi gan cao (honey-fried licorice) — to tonify the spleen and stomach. This formula is precisely the classic treatment for slow spleen wind.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The child was convulsing, so scorpion was used to calm wind and unblock the collaterals; the yang was insufficient and the spleen and stomach cold, so chuan wu warmed yang and scattered cold; and the Four Gentlemen Decoction built up the foundation of the spleen and stomach — warming yang, calming wind, and strengthening the spleen, three prongs at once. Each day this large dose was administered, slowly warming the yang back up inside.

The ginseng controversy: in Ming times people were afraid of ginseng

The formula contained ginseng, one qian (about 3 grams) per dose. But the family had doubts: the child’s face is so red and the fever so strong — how can you use such a warming medicine? Doesn’t ginseng tonify so much that it causes “fire” and bloating?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is an interesting piece of medical history. In the Ming dynasty people were wary of ginseng — afraid it was too hot, afraid it would cause bloating after tonifying, so many dared not use it. Famous physicians like Doctor Yu Jiayan and Doctor Miao Xiyong advocated: ginseng is fine — as long as it matches the pattern, use it. Under their influence people gradually came to understand ginseng’s usefulness. But by the Qing dynasty, at the time of Doctor Xu Lingtai (Xu Dachun), the pendulum had swung too far the other way — if a household had an illness and didn’t use some ginseng, it seemed they were doing the patient a disservice. So Chinese medicine constantly needs course correction: when one direction is praised too highly, everyone runs that way — and sometimes they run past the mark.

The family was anxious, but watching the child’s changes, they couldn’t deny it: the red flush faded and turned to a bright, lustrous color; the skin became moist; and the diarrhea stopped — the yang had warmed back, so the stool naturally firmed up. The body also went from rigid to supple, and the child seemed to want to say something but couldn’t quite get the words out.

The sixth night: everything fell apart

On the evening of the sixth day — one more day to the seventh, when he should wake — the child suddenly thrashed his hands and feet, restless and irritable, threw off his own quilt, and asked for soup to drink. The household erupted:

“See! The warming medicine was too strong! He’s heated up! The ginseng was definitely a mistake!”

The aunts and uncles jabbered on, and the more they talked, the more chaotic it became. Wang Sheng, Doctor Yu’s own student, panicked first — he actually did not inform his teacher, and let the family call in another physician instead.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When treating an illness, having too many family members around is truly troublesome — each person says something, and the doctor becomes passive. The worst part here is Wang Sheng: the teacher sent you to supervise, and you lost your composure first, without even reporting to him. Doctor Yu Jiayan later wrote this incident down in full in his case record, deeply displeased with this student — in his words, you have almost shown contempt for your teacher.

One dose of ox bezoar: all the progress thrown away

The other physician took one look: with this much restlessness, use niu huang (ox bezoar) to clear heart heat and settle the spirit! The result: a little ox bezoar was poured in, and every previous symptom came flooding back — the red face and fever returned in full, a dead, ashen color appeared on the face, and the bowels stopped moving entirely.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is the most direct lesson. Ox bezoar is a fierce cold medicine for clearing heat; on someone with phlegm-heat blocking the orifices it can save a life. But this child clearly had false heat from yang deficiency. The moment ox bezoar was used, cold was piled on cold, the yang that had just been warmed back was knocked down again, and so every previous symptom immediately recurred. Ox bezoar is truly not something to use casually.

Now the family realized their mistake and hurried back to Doctor Yu Jiayan. He reopened with spleen-strengthening medicines and continued warming and tonifying. The child should have woken the next day; because of this detour, it took five more days — and finally the child woke up and was saved.

The teacher loses his temper: all my ear-grabbing teaching was wasted

Afterward Doctor Yu Jiayan was very angry and scolded Wang Sheng: the previous case of Yuan Zhongqing (the child who fell in the water, was wrongly given cold medicines, and was saved by warming medicines) — my case book is right there, and you behaved as if you had never read it! On ordinary days I do nothing but grab their ears and teach them: “In treating yin patterns, if you get it to turn into a yang pattern, it will recover” — for a cold, yin-type pattern, the treatment must let it slowly turn from yin toward yang; when yang returns, the body recovers on its own even without medicine. If it hasn’t fully recovered, then add one dose of a yin-nourishing medicine (such as Er Lian Tang or Liu Wei Di Huang Tang) to correct the bias — fearing the yang medicine is too hot, one dose of a yin-nourishing formula to balance it is enough. Used this way, no case fails to recover. But you turned a deaf ear to all these principles — you simply didn’t listen!

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Yu Jiayan said: I’ve been “playing the drum of the solitary blind man, sounding the teaching that scorns it” — all my repeated drum-beating reminders went to waste, so I’m using this way to educate you. You can see how colorful his personality was: the student failed to play his part well, and he wrote the whole thing into the case record. Thank goodness he didn’t write the student’s name — if he had, that student would never hold his head up for the rest of his life.

Doctor Yu Jiayan’s insistence: mineral and metal drugs absolutely must not be used

At the end of the case record, Doctor Yu Jiayan answered his students’ questions and devoted a section to the disease name “fright wind.” He held that there is no such disease as “fright wind” — there is slow spleen wind, but no fright wind. Actually this point was a bit extreme of him — fright wind does exist; what he rejected was only the name. His treatment thinking was still much the same as everyone else’s.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What Doctor Yu Jiayan most opposed was the use of mineral and metal drugs — they are especially cold and most easily injure yang qi. Thanks to his advocacy, such drugs gradually decreased in later pediatric formulas, and by today they are basically gone; toxic minerals are no longer used at all. One could say Doctor Yu Jiayan was very clear-headed.

Doctor Luo’s summary: if you can’t distinguish yin from yang, big problems follow

1. False heat with true cold — the most dangerous mistake is treating it as a heat pattern. The child’s face is flushed, he has a fever, but the hands and feet are cold, the tongue is pale and watery-smooth, and the diarrhea won’t stop — this heat is deficient heat, the body’s resistance when yang is insufficient. If you see heat and reach for cold medicines, for ox bezoar, you are adding frost to snow and turning a small illness into a big one. To tell cold from heat, first feel the hands and feet and look at the tongue: cold hands and feet with a pale, watery tongue usually means cold — warm the interior, do not clear heat.

2. Protecting yang and protecting the upright qi of the spleen and stomach is the great principle of pediatrics. Children are born with insufficient constitution and weak spleen and stomach; they can least withstand heavy, settling, cold medicines. Indulgent parents let the child eat raw and cold foods — the spleen and stomach are injured once; then the physician injures them again with mineral drugs — with these two injuries, the child falls into slow spleen wind.

3. In treating a yin pattern, let it turn from yin to yang. Doctor Yu Jiayan’s teaching to his students is also a teaching for us: use warming medicines for a cold, yin-type pattern; as yang slowly returns, the illness naturally heals. If the yang has returned but runs a little hot, use one dose of a yin-nourishing medicine to correct the bias — that is the complete approach.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Listen to yesterday’s and today’s cases together, and you will gradually understand — sometimes heat is false heat, caused by the body being weak and yang insufficient. In that situation you must never casually use cold medicines, and especially never reach for very cold drugs like ox bezoar — look at this child: after the ox bezoar, every symptom immediately came back. Protecting yang is important; protecting the upright qi of the spleen and stomach is important — this is the message Doctor Yu Jiayan conveyed with the lives of two children.

The original case record comes from Yu Yi Cao (《寓意草》) by Doctor Yu Jiayan; the commentary is adapted from the public lectures of Doctor Luo Dalun (PhD in TCM diagnostics, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine).