When Phlegm settles in over the years

A feeling of encumbrance in the upper body, the impression that something rises instead of going down, slower digestion, fullness after meals, an appetite that fades with age… In TCM, these signs may be associated with Phlegm (Tan): a Spleen that transforms less well lets food stagnate and the Fluids congeal, and what has congealed rises to encumber the Lung. Qi, which should descend, rises against the current.

San Zi Yang Qin Tang is the work of Han Mao (韩懋), a Ming physician, who recorded it around 1522 in the Han Shi Yi Tong (《韩氏医通》). The text tells how three scholars came to see him about their elderly parents; rather than an ordinary formula, he devised a decoction pleasant to the taste, to be sipped slowly like a tea. Its name plays on a double meaning: 子 means both “seed” and “son”. Three seeds, or sons who take care of their parents.

Three seeds, three knots

Tradition describes three imbalances that feed one another: Phlegm, Qi that rises, and food that stagnates. Each seed unties one of them, and all three make Qi descend. It is a formula that clears rather than nourishes: tradition holds that one should then return to the Spleen, for example with Liu Jun Zi Tang.

Transforms Phlegm: White mustard seed, pungent and warm, warms and dissolves Phlegm, even Phlegm lodged deep down.

Helps the Qi descend: Perilla seed sets Lung Qi, which carries Phlegm upwards, back on its proper downward course.

Contributes to a good digestion: Radish seed moves along food that stagnates and, according to tradition, thereby cuts off the source of new Phlegm.