Source 出处 · Shanghan Lun · Doses are not given here: they are set by a licensed practitioner for the individual.
Safety. Zhu Ye Shi Gao Tang is recorded in Shanghan Lun. Seven ingredients: lophatherum leaf, gypsum, processed pinellia rhizome, ophiopogon tuber, ginseng, honey-fried licorice and polished round-grained rice. It is best read next to Bai Hu Tang, the great cooling formula of the same text, because the comparison is the whole point. Both contain gypsum; both contain rice; both are built around a mineral the tradition classifies as acrid, sweet and very cold. What they share is a strategy: clear the heat while protecting the fluid that the heat has consumed. What differs is where the patient is standing. Bai Hu Tang addresses a body in the full blaze of fever. This formula addresses the person afterwards. The source line is short and unusually precise: once the cold damage has resolved, wasting and shortness of breath, with counterflow rising and the urge to vomit. That is a description of convalescence, not of the acute stage, and it is one of the earliest places in the classical corpus where the text deliberately turns its attention to what comes after the fever has gone.
Read structurally, the formula has kept the gypsum-and-rice core and swapped in herbs for a depleted body: ginseng for qi, ophiopogon for fluid, lophatherum to clear what heat remains without the force of a purging cold, processed pinellia to send the counterflow downward, licorice to hold the middle together. Two components deserve a modern reader's attention. Rice is food: a grain is one of the seven named ingredients, which tells you how deliberately the author aimed below the threshold of an aggressive intervention. Ginseng is an active herb with an active interaction profile, not a tonic in the vague sense the English word now carries.
This library does not list amounts, ratios or preparation schedules, and it makes no claim that this formula treats, shortens or prevents any disease. It can say what the text says, and it can say what the safety questions are.
Safety is where the modern reader most needs to slow down, because the classical indication is written in terms that today point toward being looked at again rather than toward a cup of tea. A person who is still thin, breathless and nauseated after a febrile illness is a person who should be reassessed. Breathlessness that persists after a fever has a differential that includes myocarditis and pericarditis, pulmonary embolism, anaemia, post-viral states, uncontrolled asthma and tuberculosis; the categories this formula uses cannot separate those from one another, and the text was written long before electrocardiography, chest imaging or pulse oximetry existed. The urge to vomit has its own long list: obstruction, pregnancy, uraemia, raised intracranial pressure, inferior-wall myocardial infarction, ketoacidosis, and common drugs including opioids, digoxin and chemotherapy agents.
The ingredients carry their own cautions. Gypsum is hydrated calcium sulfate, a mineral rather than a plant. Raw pinellia rhizome is toxic: it contains needle-shaped calcium oxalate raphides that cause burning, swelling and numbness in the mouth and throat, and only the processed form belongs in a formula, so the character meaning processed in the ingredient list is not decoration. Honey-fried licorice is the most under-appreciated long-term risk here: glycyrrhizin can produce a pseudoaldosteronism picture of low potassium, raised blood pressure and oedema, and the risk grows with duration and with concurrent diuretics, digoxin or corticosteroids. Ginseng has a genuinely mixed evidence base with warfarin, with some studies suggesting an interaction and others not, and this library reports it as mixed rather than choosing the more dramatic version. The rice gives the formula a real carbohydrate load, which matters to anyone managing blood glucose. If a practitioner tells you to stop taking prescribed medicine, that is a warning sign; do not stop taking prescribed medicine on the strength of anything read here.
竹叶石膏汤著录于《伤寒论》。七味：竹叶、石膏、半夏（制）、麦冬、人参、炙甘草、粳米。最好把它与同一部书里的白虎汤放在一起读，因为两方相减之后剩下的东西才是这首方的全部意思。两方都用石膏，都用粳米，都以一味被传统归为辛甘大寒的矿物为主药；共同之处是「清热而护津」这一路思路，不同之处是病人站在哪一段。白虎汤面对的是高热正盛的身体，本方面对的是高热过去之后的那个人。原文那句话很短，也异常精确：伤寒解后，虚羸少气，气逆欲吐。这是对病后状态的描述，不是对急性期的描述，也是古典文献里最早把注意力明确转向「热退之后怎么办」的地方之一。
从结构看，本方保留了石膏与粳米这个核心，把其余几味换成了给一个被消耗过的身体准备的药：人参补气、麦冬养津、竹叶清其余热而不取攻下之寒、半夏（制）降逆、甘草守中。其中两味值得今天的读者多看一眼：粳米是食物 —— 一味谷物列在七味药之中，说明作者是有意把力道压在攻伐之下的；人参则是有明确作用与明确相互作用谱的一味药，不是英文里 tonic 那个含糊意义上的补品。
本库不列用量、不列比例、不列煎服法，也不声称本方能治疗、缩短或预防任何疾病。本库能说的是原文说了什么，以及安全问题在哪里。
安全上今天最需要慢一步，因为原文的指征在今天恰恰指向「再看一次」而不是「喝一碗」。热病之后仍然消瘦、气短、想吐的人，是需要重新评估的人。热退后持续的气短，其鉴别包含心肌炎与心包炎、肺栓塞、贫血、感染后状态、未控制的哮喘与结核；本方所用的分类无法把这几者分开，而原文成书远在心电图、胸部影像与血氧监测之前。「气逆欲吐」也自有其长清单：梗阻、妊娠、尿毒症、颅内压升高、下壁心肌梗死、酮症，以及阿片类、地高辛、化疗药一类常见药物。
几味药各自的提醒：石膏是含水硫酸钙，是矿物不是植物；生半夏有毒，所含草酸钙针晶会造成口咽灼痛肿胀与麻木，入方者只能是炮制品，组成里那个「制」字不是装饰；炙甘草是这里最容易被低估的长期风险 —— 甘草酸可致假性醛固酮增多症（低钾、血压升高、水肿），与利尿剂、地高辛或糖皮质激素同用时风险更高；人参与华法林的证据是混杂的，有研究提示相互作用，也有研究未提示，本库照实写混杂而不取更耸动的一侧；粳米意味着本方有真实的糖与谷物负荷，对需要管理血糖的人不是无关项。如执业者让你停用处方药，这是警示信号；不要因为在这里读到什么就自行停用处方药。