Source 出处 · Jingui Yaolüe · Doses are not given here: they are set by a licensed practitioner for the individual.
Safety. 黄汗 means yellow sweat, and the line that records this formula describes it precisely enough to be recognised: the body swollen, fever, sweating and thirst, the whole picture resembling 风水, and sweat that stains the clothing a true yellow, like the juice of the cypress. The source text also offers an explanation — bathing in water while sweating had opened the pores, so that water entered through them.
That explanation belongs to its own period, and this library records it as an explanation rather than as a mechanism. The description deserves more attention. A complaint defined by the colour of sweat is unusual, and today that colour is not one thing. Genuine coloured sweat, chromhidrosis, comes from the apocrine glands and is usually localised to the face or the armpit. Far more often, what looks like coloured sweat is pseudochromhidrosis, in which colourless sweat is tinted on the skin by chromogenic bacteria or by a dye or chemical on the clothing. Several medicines change the colour of body fluids: rifampicin turns urine, tears and sweat orange-red, and clofazimine darkens the skin. Carotenoderma, from a diet high in carotene, yellows the palms and the soles — and the sclera stays white, which is the single quickest way to separate it from jaundice. Jaundice is bilirubin; it does colour the sclera, and it is one blood test plus one ultrasound away — bilirubin fraction, liver enzymes, hepatitis serology, and a look for obstruction of the bile duct.
What should not be lost in all of this is the first clause of the line. The body is swollen. Oedema is measurable, the mechanism list is short, and that clause is what sends a person to be examined rather than compared with a text.
On the materials. 黄芪 is Astragalus root, a legume; in southern Chinese practice the root of Ficus hirta, 五指毛桃, is sometimes called 南芪 and circulates under a name that resembles this one, and the two are not the same plant. 芍药 is peony root — 白芍 has the bark removed and is processed, while 赤芍 is the unpeeled root, and traditional texts treat them as two different materials. 桂枝 is the young twig of Cinnamomum cassia and contains cinnamaldehyde and coumarin. 苦酒 is vinegar, which is acetic acid. At the concentrations used in food it is an ordinary substance, but it is an acid: corrosive injury of the oesophagus from concentrated acetic acid is documented, erosion of tooth enamel from frequent vinegar drinking is documented, and the effect of vinegar on gastric emptying and on blood glucose after meals has been studied without a settled answer. This library states none of those as a property of this formula; it states only that one of the things named in this formula is an acid.
Pregnancy is an absolute exclusion. This library lists no quantities, no method of preparation, and makes no claim of effect.
「黄汗」就是汗是黄的，而记载本方的条文把它描写得足够具体、足够能被认出来：身体肿，发热汗出而渴，样子像风水，**汗沾衣，色正黄如柏汁**。原文还给了一个解释：汗出时入水中洗浴，水从汗孔进入。
这个解释属于它自己的时代，本库把它作为**一个解释**记下，不作为机制。更值得留意的是那段描写。以汗的颜色来定义的主诉不多，而今天这个颜色不是一件事。**真性色汗症**（chromhidrosis）来自顶泌汗腺，多局限于面部或腋下；更常见的是**假性色汗症** —— 汗本身无色，是在皮肤表面被产色细菌，或被衣物上的染料、化学品染上的。若干药物会改变体液颜色：利福平使尿、泪与汗呈橙红色；氯法齐明使皮肤变暗褐。膳食中胡萝卜素过多引起的**胡萝卜素血症**把掌跖染黄 —— **而巩膜是白的**，这是把它和黄疸分开最快的一条。黄疸是胆红素，它**会**染到巩膜，而它离一次血检加一次超声并不远：胆红素分型、肝酶、肝炎血清学，以及看一眼胆管有没有堵。
这一条里不该被漏掉的是**第一句**：身体肿。水肿是可测的，机制表很短，而正是这一句把人送去检查，而不是送去和条文对照。
关于药味：黄芪是豆科黄芪属的根；岭南一带把桑科粗叶榕（Ficus hirta，五指毛桃）称作**南芪**，以相近的名字流通，两者不是同一植物。芍药是芍药的根 —— 白芍去皮并经加工，赤芍是带皮的生品，传统文献把二者当作两味不同的药。桂枝是肉桂（Cinnamomum cassia）的嫩枝，含桂皮醛与香豆素。**苦酒就是醋 —— 乙酸**。食用浓度下的乙酸是寻常的东西，但它是一种酸：浓乙酸对食道的腐蚀性损伤有记载，频繁饮醋导致牙釉质侵蚀有记载，醋对胃排空与餐后血糖的影响被研究过而没有定论。本库不把这些中的任何一条说成是这首方的性质；本库只说这首方里被点到的那样东西是**一种酸**。
**孕期是本方的绝对排除项。** 本库不列用量、不列制法、不作任何效果主张。