San Ren Tang is Virtuous

Don’t Forget Classical Formulas

A 50 year-old male patient with fever of unknown reason for three weeks came to see Dr. Lu. The fever, which was persistent initially with the body temperature 102F, turned into a tidal fever that happened about 10 P.M and lasted about one hour in the past week, accompanied with lassitude and decreased appetite. The tongue coating was white, thick and greasy.

 This patient did not have many other symptoms to help the differential diagnosis. According to TCM, tidal fever can be caused by yin deficiency, excess yangming fu organ pattern or warm-dampness disease. It was hard for his condition to turn into a yin deficiency in such a short time, and he did not have any other symptoms supporting yin deficiency.  He had a white greasy tongue coating and lassitude. So it should be a fever in warm dampness disease. Then Dr. Lu prescribed the herbs that can transform dampness with aromatic smell and releasing exterior patterns. San Ren Tang (Three Kernels Decoction) with modification was the choice.  After the patient took the herbs, no fever was exhibited in the same day of the use of the formula. With three doses applied, the patient’s fever had been completely gone.

San Ren Tang (Three Kernels Decoction)

Xing Ren 15g
Hua Shi 18g
Bai Tong Cao 6g
Bai Kou Ren 6g
Zhu Ye 6g
Hou Po 6g
Yi Yi Ren 18g
Ban Xia 15g

San Ren Tang (Three Kernels Decoction) first appeared in Wu Jutong’s Differentiation of Warm Diseases. This could be a review for your Febrile Disease class.