Gui zhi er yue bi yi tang
gui zhi 18 bai shao 18 sheng jiang 18 da zao 18 zhi gan cao 12 shi gao 24 ma huang 18
When in tai yang disease there is heat effusion and aversion to cold with more heat and less cold a pulse that is faint and weak means that yang is absent and one cannot promote sweating, gui zhi er yue bi yi tang is appropriate.
There is disagreement about this line. One cannot promote sweating could be misplaced. Ignore it and look at the formula. It is a combination of gui zhi tang and yue bi tang. It strongly raises yang qi to the surface and it clears heat that is drying fluids while replacing the lost nutritive.
Keeps patient from going to yang ming by clearing heat, there is a little aversion to cold. It treats a tai yang wind strike pattern combined with a yang ming heat pattern. We know this because of the use of shi gao.
Gui zhi, Cinnamomi cassiae ramulus is pungent sweet and warm dispersing of the imperial and ministerial fire. It warms and tonifies the shao yin and jue yin. In doing so it warms and tonifies the whole body.
Warm pungent to free the muscles and open the surface, warming and opening the channels allowing the cold evils at the surface to be dispersed. Gui zhi is working with sheng jiang, shi gao and ma huang to disperses the cold and heat from the surface.
Bai shao, Paeoniae radix lactiflora is sour, bitter and cool. It is sour collecting of yin fluids and blood. It is bitter descending of heat. It nourishes dryness in yang ming and the jue yin. It descends Earth and Metal and calms Wood wind.
Bai shao replenishes the nutritive ying qi layer and clears deficient heat while nourishing.
Sheng jiang, Zingiberis rhizoma recens is pungent dispersing of the liver and pericardium blood and the ministerial fire in the san jiao. Sheng jiang is pungent dispersing of dampness and cold in the stomach domain, spleen and lung. Sheng jiang is pungent connecting of the tai yin with the tai yang. It supports raising of the clear qi to the chest and the 100 vessels.
The sweat promoted with sheng jiang originates from tai yin earth and prevents the inward collapse of pathogens into the yin levels due to its upwards movement.
Da zao, Jujubae fructus is sweet tonifying and moderating. It tonifies and nourishes the stomach domain, spleen, lungs, and heart. It directly nourishes the shao yin heart.
Gui zhi, da zao and zhi gan cao tonify and nourish the heart. Da zao calms excessive movement of Wood wind.
The combination of da zao and sheng jiang tonifies the spleen and harmonizes the stomach. Da zao combined with bai shao strengthens the creation of fluids through sweet and sour.
Da zao adds material to the tai yin middle to generate heart blood while building spleen qi to strengthen lung and heart qi to revive the pulse beat.
Zhi gan cao, Glycyrrhizae radix prep is sweet tonifying and nourishing of all organs but especially the heart.
Zhi gan cao is sweet and mildly warm tonifying and nourishing of yin fluids. It nourishes yin fluids in the tai yin and shao yin. It calms wind in the jue yin.
It balances the pungent gui zhi, sheng jiang, shi gao, and ma huang with its sweet moderation and nourishing.
Shi gao, Gypsum is pungent dispersing of heat in the stomach domain and lung. It is sweet nourishing of the stomach, spleen, and lung. It is pungent cold dispersing of the yang channels: tai yang, yang ming, shao yang. It saves yin and blood by clearing heat.
Very cold pungent and sweet shi gao clears the qi layer heat, clears internal heat in the shao yang and yang ming channels. It also disperses excess yang ming or qi layer channel fire with pungent dispersing and cools heat with cool sweetness.
Shi gao is working together with ma huang in dispersing the heat on the surface. The temperatures balance each other. Ma huang strongly tonifies heart yang while shi gao prevents excessive dispersing with its sweet nature.
Shi gao is a yang ming heat clearing herb. It is used especially in yang ming heat pattern because it clears heat without drying fluids.
Ma huang, Ephedrae herba is bitter descending of the lung. It is pungent dispersing of the imperial and ministerial fire. It enters the lung and bladder channel, it opens the surface, and dispels the cold on the surface. Further it dissipates lung qi and pacifies panting through opening the closed lung qi.
Warm pungent ma huang diffuses and opens the surface to resolve cold evils and pacifies panting through opening the pores. Often combined with shi gao which is pungent and cold to clear heat.