Compendium of Materia Medica: Water Section
"Compendium of Materia Medica" Water Section · Vernacular Interpretation
Overall Paraphrase
The Water Section catalogues fourteen kinds of water recognized and utilized by ancient physicians. The ancients believed that water collected from different sources, at different seasons, and in different states possesses distinct properties and functions. 🌊
Dew
Name Explanation: Collected in the early morning from among flowers and grasses when autumn dew is heavy.
Properties: Sweet, neutral, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it to decoct lung-moistening and parasite-expelling medicinals, or to mix powders for treating scabies, tinea, and insect-related skin conditions into topical applications, believing it could enhance medicinal efficacy.
- Flower Dew: The ancients believed it could quench wasting-thirst (diabetes).
- Hundred Flowers Dew: The ancients believed it could beautify the skin.
- Cypress Leaf Dew, Calamus Dew: The ancients believed that washing the eyes with these each morning could improve eyesight.
- Leek Leaf Dew: The ancients believed it could treat vitiligo by applying it to the affected area each morning.
Winter Frost
Name Explanation: Method of collecting frost — sweep it up with a chicken feather, seal it in a bottle, and store in a cool place. Although it melts into liquid, it will not spoil for a long time.
Properties: Sweet, cold, non-toxic.
Indications:
- The ancients believed drinking winter frost could relieve heat from alcohol; whenever the face becomes hot and ears red after drinking, drinking it brings immediate relief.
- For nasal congestion from cold damage, the ancients believed drinking winter frost could also unblock the nose.
- For prickly heat and swollen armpits in summer, the ancients mixed winter frost with clam powder and applied topically.
- For alternating chills and fever (malaria), the ancients took one and a half qian of post-autumn frost or winter frost, administered with warm wine.
Solar-Term Snow
Name Explanation: Method of collecting snow — sweep it up with a chicken feather, seal it in a bottle, and store in a cool place. Although it melts into liquid, it will not spoil for a long time.
Properties: Sweet, cold, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients believed that solar-term snow sealed and stored in a cool place would not spoil for decades. Solar-term snow benefits the growth of vegetables and wheat, and can kill insects and locusts; soaking the five grain seeds in it makes them drought-resistant and free of insects; sprinkling it on furniture drives away flies; using it to preserve fruits and foods prevents insect damage. Spring snow easily spoils, and the ancients believed it could not be used medicinally.
Summer Ice
Name Explanation: Also known as "Ling".
Properties: Sweet, cold, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients believed it could remove heat and agitation, soothe the fever and swelling caused by "milk stone" (alchemical elixirs), and detoxify summerheat toxin and distilled liquor toxin. For yang-toxic cold damage with severe heat and coma, placing a piece of ice on the chest is effective. In winter, ice cellars were dug to store ice for summer use. For scars on the body, repeatedly rubbing them with summer ice was believed to eliminate them.
Mid-Heaven River Water
Name Explanation: Also known as "Upper Pool Water". Refers to water collected from bamboo fences or hollow tree cavities.
Properties: Sweet, slightly cold, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it for ghost affliction (when patients feel a "ghost" dwells within the body; now understood as conditions like tuberculosis), to dispel pathogenic qi, malignant toxins, and gu afflictions (mental confusion disorders, neurosis, with stools sometimes containing chicken-liver-like blood clots; now understood as parasitic infestations). Washing various malignant sores, scabies, and itching with it was believed effective by the ancients. For white patches on the body, water from tree cavities could be used to wash, with ground cassia twig mixed with saliva applied on top — the ancients believed this effective.
Running Water
Name Explanation: Also known as labor water, sweet-churned water, or splashed-poured water. Take two dou of river or stream water, place in a large basin, and use a ladle to scoop water up and pour it down from a height, repeating this many times.
Properties: Sweet, neutral, non-toxic.
Indications:
- For inability to close the eyes and sleep (yang deficiency with yin excess, inability to sleep, eyes cannot close): The ancients used five sheng of labor water, one sheng of sorghum, and five ge of pinellia, simmered slowly over low heat until reduced to one sheng; strain and drink the liquid, one small cup per dose, three times daily.
- For running piglet syndrome after sweating (distending pain in the lower abdomen with qi rushing upward after mistakenly taking diaphoretic herbs; "like a pig charging," hence the name).
Well Spring Water
Name Explanation: Well water is classified by source — water from deep underground springs is of the highest quality; water seeping in from nearby rivers and lakes is secondary; water contaminated by city drainage and sewers is inferior.
Properties: Sweet, neutral, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it for heat dysentery after drinking alcohol, washing eye opacities, eliminating halitosis, and calming the spirit.
Sweet Spring Water
Name Explanation: Also known as nectar spring. The spring water has a slight flavor of light wine.
Properties: Sweet, neutral, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it for heart and abdominal pain, zhu wu (ghost affliction), wasting-thirst, vomiting, and cholera. Freshly drawn water is best for medicinal use. The Auspicious Response Chart says: regularly drinking sweet spring water brings longevity. The Eastern Observations Record says: regularly drinking sweet spring water can eliminate chronic ailments (protracted illness).
Hot Springs
Name Explanation: Also known as warm springs or boiling springs. There are many varieties: sulfur springs (most common), quartz-sand springs (found at Huangshan in Xin'an), and alum springs (found at Lishan in Xi'an).
Properties: Acrid, hot, slightly toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it for contraction and rigidity of sinews and bones, numbness and paralysis of the skin and flesh, unresponsive hands and feet, loss of eyebrows and hair, and various scabies and tinea conditions. The properties and indications above primarily pertain to sulfur springs. Most other hot springs are non-toxic (except those containing arsenic stones), and the ancients believed they could be used for brewing tea and were also good for bathing.
Salt Bittern Water
Name Explanation: Also known as brine. The black concentrated liquid that drips from the trough when boiling salt first comes to completion. It tastes bitter and cannot be consumed, but can be used to make tofu.
Properties: Salty, bitter, highly toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it for various parasitic erosion conditions, neck fistulas (cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis), scabies and tinea, and phlegm reversal (syncope due to phlegm).
E Jing Spring Water
Name Explanation: E Jing spring is also a type of well water.
Properties: Sweet-salty, neutral, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it to drive down phlegm (i.e., treat rebellious phlegm), descend stagnation and turbidity in the chest and stomach, and stop vomiting.
Earth Slurry Water
Name Explanation: Dig into the yellow earth layer (approximately three chi deep), pour in freshly drawn water, stir to muddiness, wait for the water to settle clear, then take the clear water for use. Also known as "earth pulp."
Properties: Sweet, cold, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients believed it could relieve poisoning with restlessness, and detoxify all kinds of fish, meat, fruit, vegetable, medicinal, and fungal toxins. For example, consuming excessive Sichuan pepper or black pepper, eating uncooked wild taro, or accidentally ingesting arsenic — drinking earth slurry water could provide relief. Some patients who experience poisoning after taking medicinals containing schizonepeta and then eating yellow croaker could also use earth slurry water as an antidote. For those suffering from "dry cholera" (wanting to vomit but unable, distended above and below, extremely distressed), the ancients believed drinking three to five cups of earth slurry water, while abstaining from rice congee, could bring recovery.
Hot Water
Name Explanation: Also known as hundred-boiling water, hemp-boiling water, or supreme harmony water.
Properties: Sweet, neutral, non-toxic.
Indications: The ancients used it for cholera with muscle cramping (using a vessel of hot water to compress the affected area, also hot-soaking the soles of the feet, changing the water when it cools), frostbite, abscesses and swellings, red and disordered eyes, and scorpion and wasp stings.
Fermented Water
Name Explanation: Also known as sour slurry. After millet is cooked, it is soaked in cold water for five to six days; the flavor turns sour, a white film forms on the surface, and the water is taken for medicinal use. If left until spoiled, the water becomes harmful.
Properties: Sweet-sour, slightly warm, non-toxic.
Indications:
- Vomiting and diarrhea: Decoct dried ginger in fermented water and drink.
- Muscle pain and abdominal distention from excessive preserved meat consumption: Cook congee in fermented water, adding a small amount of eagle dung (for better effect).
- Swollen and painful fingers: Soak the affected area in fermented water with salt, changing when the water cools.
- Dark moles on the face: Wash the face with warm fermented water each night, then rub with a cloth until red, and apply ground white sandalwood juice.
- Fish bone stuck in the throat: Magnetite calcined and quenched in vinegar, combined with aged dried tangerine peel and aged fermented water sediment, made into pills the size of qian seeds; hold and swallow one pill at a time.
- The ancients also believed fermented water could regulate the middle and guide qi, open the appetite and quench thirst, relieve restlessness and dispel sleepiness, harmonize the viscera, and promote urination.
🧠 Deep Understanding
Core Principles 💡
The Classificatory Thought of "Water as Medicine": Li Shizhen's inclusion of "water" in the materia medica system embodies the traditional Chinese medical thinking of "everything can be medicine" through analogical observation. The Water Section classifies according to three dimensions — source (heaven-sent/earth-produced/human-processed), season (autumn dew, winter frost, solar-term snow), and state (ice, hot water, fermented water) — constructing a complete cognitive framework for "water medicine."
Core Medical Logic:
- Qi Transformation View: The ancients believed water is not merely H₂O but a carrier bearing the qi of heaven and earth. Autumn dew partakes of the astringent qi of metal, hence it moistens the lungs; winter frost embodies the nature of cold water, hence it clears heat. 💨
- Ascending, Descending, Floating, and Sinking: After running water undergoes the "splashing and surging" treatment, the molecular structure is dispersed; the ancients believed its nature becomes more active, capable of guiding medicinals upward and freeing the triple burner.
- Treating Heat with Cold, Treating Dryness with Moisture: Summer ice for severe heat and dew for lung dryness are direct applications of the principle "cold conditions are treated with heat, hot conditions with cold." 🔥❄️
- Like Qi Attracts Like: Mid-heaven river water is "water from heaven above"; the ancients believed its nature is clear and light, making it suitable for treating disorders of the upper body (the mind and consciousness).
Modern Perspective 🌟
Reasonable Elements:
- Water quality differences do exist: Classifying well spring water by source vaguely corresponds with modern hydrogeological classifications of groundwater systems (deep confined aquifers, shallow phreatic water, contaminated surface water).
- The value of hot spring therapy: Minerals such as sulfur in hot springs provide auxiliary physiotherapeutic effects for skin and joint conditions; modern "mineral spring therapy" and "thermal medicine" have partially validated this. 🌿
- The reasonableness of ice application: Using summer ice to "soothe fever and swelling from milk stone" and "placing ice on the chest for heat-induced coma" aligns with modern physical cooling and local cold compress principles.
- The relative purity of dew: The ancients used autumn dew medicinally; in ancient times with less air pollution, dew was indeed relatively clean. However, modern air contains many pollutants, and dew should not be directly collected and consumed.
- The microbiology of fermented water: Fermented water is essentially a product of lactic acid fermentation. Modern research indicates it contains lactic acid bacteria and organic acids, which may have some regulatory effect on intestinal flora — showing a degree of correspondence with the records of "opening the appetite, quenching thirst, and regulating the viscera."
Obvious Limitations and Cautionary Points:
- Lack of modern evidence for the efficacy of dew, winter frost, and solar-term snow: Records such as "leek leaf dew treats vitiligo" and "cypress leaf dew improves eyesight" are empirical observations without modern clinical evidence support.
- Mid-heaven river water "treating ghost affliction and gu illness": Attributing tuberculosis and parasitic diseases to "ghosts" and "gu" reflects the limitations of the era's understanding and represents ancient imaginative explanations for infectious diseases.
- Salt bittern water "highly toxic yet curative": Brine contains high concentrations of magnesium chloride and other substances and is indeed toxic; the ancients' empirical use for external applications should be viewed cautiously.
- Earth slurry water as antidote: Earth slurry water may reduce the concentration of some toxins through soil adsorption and dilution, but for highly toxic substances like arsenic, it cannot replace modern emergency interventions such as gastric lavage and antidotes.
Health Cultivation Insights ⚡
- Value water quality: The ancients' classification of water reminds us to pay attention to the purity of drinking water sources, and not to rely excessively on processed beverages.
- Drink according to the seasons: Moderately warm water in winter; avoid excessive cold drinks in summer that damage the spleen and stomach — although it is not necessary to adopt "solar-term snow" or "summer ice," the principle of moderate temperature is worth borrowing.
- Appropriate mineral intake: Hot spring bathing can help relax the sinews, soothe the body, and relieve stress, but excessive soaking should be avoided, especially for those with sensitive skin.
- The wisdom of fermented beverages: Fermented water indicates that moderately fermented dietary traditions contain a reasonable core in folk practice, but hygiene conditions must be controlled; home-fermented spoiled beverages should not be consumed.
- Awareness of physical cooling: The records of summer ice demonstrate that the ancients already recognized the value of physical cooling for heat conditions; in modern life, timely heat dissipation during high fever and ice application should be performed under professional guidance.
📚 Related Knowledge
Related Concepts:
- Qi Transformation Theory: In TCM theory, water is not merely a substance but a carrier of "qi." As the saying goes, "water is the mother of qi"; water metabolism is closely related to the qi transformation functions of the lungs, spleen, and kidneys.
- Analogical Observation (Qu Xiang Bi Lei): This is the core thinking method of the Water Section's classification — autumn dew belongs to metal (autumn), hence it moistens the lungs; winter frost belongs to cold (winter), hence it clears heat; mid-heaven river water "comes from heaven," hence it clears the upper burner.
- Sweet-Churned Water (Gan Lan Shui): Running water (labor water) after the splashing and churning treatment is called "sweet-churned water." Zhang Zhongjing used it in the Treatise on Cold Damage for the Poria-Cinnamon- Licorice-Jujube Decoction to treat running piglet syndrome, reflecting the ancients' unique understanding of manually modifying water quality to enhance medicinal potency.
- Brine and Tofu: Although salt bittern water (brine) is highly toxic, it is the coagulant used in making tofu. The invention of Chinese tofu is closely linked to salt production, embodying the dialectical thinking of "even poison has its uses" and "transforming harm into benefit."
Further Reading:
- Compendium of Materia Medica · Fire Section: Counterpart to the Water Section; the Fire Section likewise classifies by source and form, demonstrating Li Shizhen's systematic approach to natural observation.
- Treatise on Cold Damage — Poria-Cinnamon-Licorice-Jujube Decoction: Prepared with sweet-churned water; useful for comparing and understanding the technical application of "running water."
- Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon · Plain Questions · Treatise on Decoctions and Fermented Liquids: Discusses the preparation and therapeutic principles of "decoctions" and "fermented sweet liquors," forming a theoretical counterpart to the Water Section.
- Compendium of Materia Medica · Human Section · Hot Water: Li Shizhen further elaborates on the "unblocking" property of hot water in his "Ten Agents" doctrine.
This content is based on classic works of traditional Chinese medicine and is provided solely for the study and appreciation of traditional culture. It does not constitute any medical diagnosis, medication prescription, or treatment advice. If you are unwell, please seek medical attention promptly.
