🌿 Folk Prescriptions

The Dream of the Red Chamber, Chapter 45, describes how Lin Daiyu would suffer from coughing every spring and autumn. On this day, she was ill in bed, and Xue Baochai came to visit her. When discussing "those who eat grains live," Baochai said: "Yesterday, I saw your prescription—ginseng and cinnamon seem excessive. Although they benefit qi and nourish the spirit, they are not suitable for being too warming. In my opinion, first priority should be calming the liver and strengthening the stomach. Once the liver fire is calmed, it cannot over-control the spleen and stomach; with healthy digestive function, food can truly nourish the body." With just three sentences, Baochai revealed the essence of traditional health preservation based on the Five Elements’ generation and control.
“The Five Elements” refer to metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Ancient people believed these five elements were the fundamental components constituting all things in the universe. The Guoyu states: “Thus, ancient kings combined earth, metal, wood, water, and fire to create myriad things.”
The basic principles of the Five Elements are generation (sheng) and control (ke). “Generation” means metal generates water, water generates wood, wood generates fire, fire generates earth, and earth generates metal—each has a mutual relationship of “what gives rise to me” and “I give rise to.” “Control” means metal controls wood, wood controls earth, earth controls water, water controls fire, and fire controls metal—each has a mutual relationship of “I control” and “is controlled by me.” Generation contains control, and control contains generation; opposites complement each other, forming an endless cycle.
Besides normal generation and control, the Five Elements may also experience abnormal phenomena such as “overwhelming” (cheng) and “rebellion” (wu). “Overwhelming” refers to excessive control following the order of control, implying invasion through weakness. “Rebellion” refers to abnormal control contrary to the order of control, implying dominance over the weak. For example, if wood energy is excessive and metal cannot restrain it, then wood will overwhelm earth, and in turn, rebel against metal. Conversely, if wood energy is deficient, metal will overwhelm wood, and earth will rebel against wood.
Thus, the balance of generation and control requires moderation—neither deficiency nor excess. This is precisely what TCM’s “diagnosis and differentiation” focuses on.
Based on this principle, ancient medicine, combining clinical practice, explained the relationship between the Five Elements and both internal and external environments of the individual, offering clear guidance for self-healthcare:
For instance, the liver belongs to wood; anger harms the liver, which can be overcome by sorrow and alleviated by fear. Anger causes qi to surge, leading to liver qi rising and expansion of the liver network. Sorrow relates to the lungs, which belong to metal—metal restrains wood. Fear relates to the kidneys, which belong to water—water nourishes wood. This applies to internal environment; the rest follows similarly.
Regarding the external environment, the key to spring health is protecting the liver and strictly preventing wind pathogen invasion. The rationale behind “wearing more clothes in spring” lies here. The rest follows similarly.
Returning to Baochai’s words: “Once the liver qi is calm, it cannot control the earth.” The liver belongs to wood, and the spleen and stomach belong to earth. Wood and earth control each other. Wood generates fire—excessive liver fire harms the spleen and stomach. Once liver fire is calmed, it no longer over-controls the spleen and stomach, allowing smooth digestion and nutrient absorption. How vivid and fitting! One cannot help but be convinced.
Ancient people believed that the generation, control, overwhelming, and rebellion of the Five Elements represent the fundamental patterns of cosmic composition, birth, death, cycles, and evolution—and also the foundation of health preservation. As the great medical scholar Zhang Jingyue said: “The mechanism of creation cannot lack generation, nor can it lack restraint (control); without generation, there would be no development, and without restraint, excess would cause harm.” Therefore, when pursuing health preservation, we must follow the laws of the Five Elements; and to follow these laws, we must apply dialectical moderation.
That said, due to the limitations of their era, ancient people’s Five Elements theory could never achieve a rigorous scientific system. Human health, however, is an extremely complex systemic engineering project. Thus, when applying the Five Elements concept to health preservation, we must avoid dogmatism and forced interpretations.