Abstract:

Lao Zhai is an infectious and chronic consumptive disease, mainly characterized by symptoms such as cough, hemoptysis, hectic fever, night sweat, and gradual weight loss. It is equivalent to the narrow sense of tuberculosis in modern medicine. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a long history in the treatment of tuberculosis. TCM physicians of successive dynasties believed that its occurrence and development are closely related to “Fire”. The authors explored TCM pathogenesis and syndrome differentiation and treatment of tuberculosis from the perspective of “Fire”, combed understandings of physicians in successive dynasties, explained the pathogenic characteristics of different types of “Fire”, and clarified that the “Fire” in the pathogenesis of tuberculosis could be divided into four types: deficiency fire, ministerial fire, phlegm-fire, and fire transformed from long-term blood stasis, and identified deficiency fire as the main type in clinic, accompanied by other types. The thinking of syndrome differentiation and treatment of tuberculosis can take “fire” as the core, then combining with typical clinically proven cases, clarify pathogenesis changes of relevant syndrome types, adjust treatment according to symptoms, to provide references and ideas for improving TCM clinical treatment of tuberculosis.

Key words: Lao Zhai (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Fire, Tuberculosis,pulmonary, Empiricism, Medical records