Source 出处 · Wenbing Tiaobian · Doses are not given here: they are set by a licensed practitioner for the individual.
Safety. Qing Luo Yin is recorded in the Wenbing Tiaobian, and it is the mildest thing in this category. Six ingredients, and what strikes a modern reader first is that most of them are kitchen items: the edge of a lotus leaf, honeysuckle flower, the green rind of a watermelon, lablab flower, the skin of a mature luffa, and the shoot of a bamboo leaf. That is worth saying plainly, because it is easy to assume that a classical pharmacopoeia is made of exotic substances. Much of it is not. It is made of what grew outside the door.
The name says what it is for. Luo is the network of collaterals, the fine branching vessels between the main channels, and to clear the network is to reach something that is neither in the exterior nor deep in the interior but lodged in between. The classical indication is correspondingly modest: after sweating has been induced for a summerheat illness and the main fever has gone, some of the evil remains, and what remains shows as a head that is not quite clear, a slight thirst, a slight cough, without the high fever or the distress of the acute stage. Classical authors also used it for what they called summerheat injuring the lung network. It is a formula for the tail of an illness, not for its beginning, and certainly not for its emergency.
Two honest limits belong here. The first is that the text specifies fresh material for most of the six, and fresh is not the same as dried: the aromatic fraction that the formula depends on is the fraction that drying loses. This library records that the classical composition uses fresh material and does not claim that a dried version is equivalent. The second is that fresh plant material carries its own problems that dried material does not — spoilage, microbial growth, and whatever was sprayed on the plant.
Three of the six need naming. Lotus leaf contains nuciferine and related alkaloids, and there is a large commercial market in lotus-leaf products sold for weight loss; this library makes no claim about body weight or blood lipids, and it notes that products sold for those purposes have repeatedly been found adulterated with pharmaceutical substances in various countries. The watermelon rind is the green outer peel of the fruit, a food item, and the luffa skin comes from a mature luffa — the same fruit that yields the fibrous loofah used as a sponge, but a different part of it. The bamboo leaf shoot is the young leaf of a bamboo; it is not the same plant as the commonly used dan zhu ye, which is Lophatherum gracile, and the two are not interchangeable. Honeysuckle flower is the flower of Lonicera japonica and is not the same as shan yin hua from other Lonicera species.
The one thing to carry away from this entry is a caution rather than a remedy. Six mild ingredients invite the assumption that the state they are recorded for can be assessed at home — a muddled head and a slight cough. A cough that lasts more than eight weeks needs to be worked up rather than treated, and that work-up includes tuberculosis, bronchiectasis and lung cancer. A head that is not clear after a febrile illness, especially with neck stiffness, photophobia or vomiting, is a reason to be seen, not a reason to make a tea. This page records that the formula exists in the literature. No quantity, no preparation, no regimen, and no claim that it helps anything. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, children, older adults and impaired kidney function each remove what room there was.
清络饮著录于《温病条辨》，是本库这一类别中最轻的一首。六味药，现代读者第一眼会注意到的，是其中多半是厨房里的东西：荷叶边、金银花、西瓜翠衣（西瓜的青色外皮）、扁豆花、老丝瓜的皮、竹子的嫩叶。这一点值得直说，因为人容易假定一部古典本草里都是珍奇怪物。并非如此，它大部分是门口长出来的东西。
方名说明了它治什么。「络」是络脉，是在主要通道之间细分支的网络；「清络」是到达一个既不在表、也不深入在里、而卡在其间的东西。古典主治相应地很轻：暑温已经发过汗、大热已退，余邪未净，表现为头目不清、微渴、微咳，没有急性期的高热与烦躁。古典作者也用它治所谓「暑伤肺络」。这是一首治病之尾的方，不是治病之始的方，更不是急症之方。
这里有两条诚实的限制。第一：原方六味中多数注明用**鲜品**，而鲜不等同于干 —— 本方所依赖的芳香气，正是干燥会失去的那一部分。本库记录「古典组成用鲜品」，不主张干品等效。第二：鲜品带着干品没有的问题 —— 腐败、微生物滋生，以及植株上被喷洒过的东西。
六味中有三味需要点名。**荷叶**含荷叶碱等生物碱；市面上有大量以「荷叶」名义售出的减重产品，本库对体重与血脂不作任何主张，并需指出：此类产品在多国被反复检出掺有化学药物成分。**西瓜翠衣**是西瓜的青色外层果皮，属食物；**丝瓜皮**取自老熟丝瓜 —— 与用作海绵的丝瓜络同一果实而不同部位。**竹叶心**是竹的嫩叶，与常用的**淡竹叶**（Lophatherum gracile）是两种不同植物，不可互换。**金银花**是忍冬的花，与来自忍冬属其他植物的山银花不是一物。
读完本条要带走的不是一味药，而是一句提醒。六味都很平和，容易让人以为它所主治的状态可以自己在家判断 —— 头目不清、微咳而已。但持续八周以上的咳嗽是需要检查而不是处理的，检查范围包括结核、支气管扩张与肺癌。热病之后头目不清，尤其伴颈项强直、畏光或呕吐，是去就诊的理由，不是煮一壶茶的理由。本页记录的是文献中有此方：不列用量、不列制法、不列服法，也不主张它对任何情况有益。妊娠、哺乳、儿童、老年、肾功能受损，任何一项都足以抹去空间。