How to Read a Medical Recipe

CASE 2:  Medicine and Childbirth

How to Read It: A RECIPE FROM DA SHENG BIAN

Treatise on Successful Childbirth contained a few remedies that Jizhai said one could use to boost the woman’s vital energy during childbirth. This is the recipe for a remedy called “Lovage and angelica decoction with added ingredients.” Lovage and angelica are two plants that were regularly used to treat women’s diseases. A standard formula consisted of cooking these two plants together. Jizhai is offering a modified version, in which lovage and angelica are supplemented by other herbs.
 

A typical medical recipe consisted of four parts:

1. NAME OF REMEDY AND A GENERAL DESCRIPTION

There was a huge repertoire of standard remedies with individual names. Some of these names described the ingredients, such as “Four Ingredients Decoction,” whereas others described the effect of the medicine, such as “Decoction for Expediting Birth.” When medical texts listed the names of remedies, they also might include the name of the book from which the remedy was obtained and also say something about the effect of the medicine. Here, the recipe cited is “Lovage and angelica decoction with added ingredients.” The text also states that this formula will be effective in 10,000 of 10,000 cases, a guaranteed 100% effectivity, and that it is truly a divine remedy.

2. LIST OF INGREDIENTS AND QUANTITIES

The number of ingredients in a remedy could vary widely. This formula uses four ingredients:

Angelica, one liang (a Chinese ounce);

Lovage, seven qian (a qian was one-tenth of a Chinese ounce);

Tortoise shell, a slice as big as one’s hand, roasted in vinegar and ground into a powder; and

Hair from a person’s head. Use a ball of hair as big as a chicken’s egg, baked on a hot tile until brittle, but retaining the original shape.

3. INSTRUCTIONS ON PREPARING AND ADMINISTERING THE MEDICINE

A patient (or her family) would take the recipe to a medicine shop. The herbalist would measure the ingredients, and then the patient would prepare the herbs at home. Most medicines were prepared by boiling and simmering. They were usually taken orally, although some recipes called for the ingredients to be made into a paste that would be rubbed on the person’s body. In other cases, you would use the steam from the medicinal brew to fumigate the diseased part.

This recipe indicates that the ingredients should be placed in two bowls of water and simmered until the water has been reduced by half. Then the medicine should be taken orally.

4. DESCRIPTION OF THE EFFECT OF THE MEDICINE

This explains what would happen once you used the medicine. The effect of this medicine is to resolve cases of difficult labor. It says, “administer [the medicine] and the child will be born within the time it takes someone to walk five li [a li is about one-third of a mile, so this would take about half an hour]. Even if the baby is dead, this will make it come out.”

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