Ren, male, 25 years old, admitted on December 25, 1981. The patient has a history of heavy smoking and drinking, and a history of pleurisy. The patient has a constitution prone to phlegm-dampness. During the cold winter, after laboring and sweating, he removed his clothes and caught a cold, leading to illness. He developed distending pain in the chest and hypochondrium, severe pain like being stabbed by an awl, cough with copious phlegm, nausea and vomiting, accompanied by dizziness and blurred vision, poor appetite, and no bowel movement. There was no fever or shortness of breath. He had been treated with both Chinese and Western medicine for more than 10 days without significant improvement, and was then hospitalized for treatment.
The symptoms are as described above, with a pale red tongue, thick white coating, and a wiry and slippery pulse. The syndrome is attributed to cold and excess thoracic accumulation. The treatment should focus on warming and purging the cold excess, eliminating phlegm, and softening hardness. The prescription used is the Three-Ingredient White Powder from the "Treatise on Cold Damage Diseases." The prescription is as follows:
Croton Fruit Frost 5g, Fritillaria Bulb 15g, Platycodon Root 15g
The above three ingredients are ground into powder. Take 1.5g each time, mixed with warm water. The patient took 1.5g on the first day and had four episodes of loose stools. The next day, he took 1.5g in the morning and afternoon, respectively. Initially, he experienced abdominal pain and a burning sensation, followed by rumbling in the intestines, and then six episodes of watery diarrhea with phlegm-like white mucus. After that, the dizziness, blurred vision, nausea, and vomiting disappeared, chest pain improved, and coughing with phlegm decreased. Observing that the pathogenic factors were still strong and the healthy qi was not damaged, with the tongue and pulse unchanged, the powder was continued for three more days, resulting in more than 30 episodes of diarrhea. Although the patient felt weak after the diarrhea, his appetite increased, and there was still dull pain in the chest. The white coating became thinner, and the pulse became thin and slow. The powder was then discontinued, and Six Gentlemen Decoction was prescribed for recovery. The patient was hospitalized for a total of 13 days, with all symptoms resolved, and was discharged cured.