Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

Ben Song has a visitor to impress. Evan goes back to his book.

Ben rose with an air of importance, raised his right fist to his mouth, and gave a discreet cough. “Hello, ma’am. I’m Ben Song!”

The woman at the door kept looking at Evan’s face. “Oh, so you’re Dr. Song! A friend told me what a wonderful doctor you were, so I came especially to see you.”

Ben’s mouth twitched. Could you damn well look at me when you’re talking to me?

Since she’d come to see Ben, Evan left them to it and sat back down with his book.

Clara, busy chatting with a whole group of young women, found a moment to look up at the visitor. What was going on? Ben had a returning patient too? Was she here for treatment or a massage? Didn’t he only get repeat business for tuina?[1]

Ben swallowed his irritation. “In that case, come on in.”

Only then did the woman reluctantly enter, looking back at Evan every few steps.

Unfortunately for her, he paid her no attention. He was completely absorbed in his book.

She sat opposite Ben, looking rather listless.

“Come on, give me your hand. I’ll take your pulse,” Ben said casually. “Don’t say anything, and don’t tell me what’s wrong with you. Once I’ve finished, I’ll tell you. All you have to do is say whether I’m right.”

Even Evan turned from his book to look at him.

Seeing Evan turn, Ben gave a little snort and lifted his chin smugly.

He reached over and settled his fingers on the cun, guan, and chi positions at the woman’s left wrist.[2]

His fingers had barely touched her wrist—he hadn’t even had time to fart—before he began.

“Hmm… Your pulse is soggy. Deep and soggy. Young lady, your qi and blood are weak. You have trouble sleeping at night, don’t you?”[3]

The woman nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes, yes…”

“Exactly. Qi and blood deficiency. When there isn’t enough qi and blood, the blood fails to nourish the Heart. And the Heart governs the mind. That’s why you can’t sleep properly. You might even have palpitations.”[4]

The woman made a show of amazement. “Wow, Dr. Song, you’re amazing. You got it exactly right!”

Ben looked pleased with himself. “Of course! And you must feel tired, right? Exhausted all the time. That’s because of your qi and blood deficiency too.”

“Can you treat it?”

“Of course. Don’t worry. Easy. As quick as striking a drum and hearing it sound!”

Evan frowned. He studied her complexion. Her face was rosy. She showed none of the facial signs of qi and blood deficiency.

With qi and blood deficiency, the complexion would be sallow, or pale white with pale lips, like Little Octopus yesterday. Or it could be greenish, with liver disease causing the deficiency.[5]

This woman didn’t look like that.

And Ben had reached a conclusion the instant he touched her pulse. What was he, some kind of god?

Before Evan could finish considering his doubts, a shout came from the door.

“Young lady, don’t listen to that quack’s nonsense!”

Everyone in the clinic looked outside.

They were all taken aback. They knew this man: the middle-aged patient who’d come to Ben a few days earlier for mouth ulcers.

Their expressions changed. This was clearly no friendly return visit. He’d come to make trouble.

Clara no longer had time to flirt with the girls. She got to her feet in alarm. This was her first encounter with a dispute over medical treatment.

Ben swallowed, looking uneasy. He had no interest in showing off now.

“Mr. Zhang, watch what you say,” he said quickly.

The patient was a local cab driver surnamed Zhang, known around the county as Zhang the Cab Driver.

The driver strode inside, his cheeks puffed out, and snapped, “You! You prescribed the wrong medicine, and now my mouth ulcers are even worse!”

Ben stared. “The Daochi San didn’t work?”[6]

“Obviously! Would I be back here if it had?”

That left Ben speechless.

The woman who’d come to see him was growing nervous too.

Ben was puzzled. Usually, if he failed to cure someone, wouldn’t they just swear a bit and never come back? Maybe lose all faith in Chinese medicine, or even turn into one of its bashers?

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Why had this fellow come back to cause a scene? Ben might not have many skills, but he did have a knack for talking his way out of a crisis.

“Mr. Zhang, you can’t say that. First, no doctor can guarantee a cure. Second, you have no proof that my prescription was wrong for your condition.”

“How was it not wrong?” the driver demanded. “I went to another doctor. He said you didn’t know what you were doing. And the medicine was bad enough… but you insisted on giving me tuina too! Isn’t that just padding the bill?”

Ben froze. Damn. Of all things, it was the massage that had tripped him up.

Evan was at a loss too. Did the man think he was running a home-renovation company, forever tacking extra jobs onto the bill?

Clara didn’t know what to say either.

Ben swallowed. “The tuina… that was to loosen you up. You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

“That doesn’t mean you can do whatever you like! Prescribing the wrong medicine!”

“How was it wrong? Which doctor told you that? And did he give you any medicine?”

The driver nodded. “Yes.”

“Did you get any better after taking it?”

After a pause, the driver shook his head. “No.”

Ben perked up immediately and clapped his hands. “Exactly! Then how can you blame me? He didn’t cure you either! And he says my prescription was wrong? I think his prescription was wrong and interfered with mine! He’s only accusing me to dodge the blame!”

Evan and Clara both stared. Good grief. A genius of logic.

The driver was left dazed by Ben’s patter. It did seem to make sense.

Ben adopted a patient, earnest tone. “Chinese medicine treats the root cause. It just takes a little longer to work. You don’t want mouth ulcers forever, do you? You still need Chinese herbs. Tell you what, I’ll prescribe some more. This time it’ll definitely work.”

“First I prescribed Zhibai Dihuang Wan… so it isn’t yin deficiency with excessive heat. Daochi San wasn’t right either, so it isn’t heat in the Heart channel… Not the upper burner, not the lower burner, so it must be the middle burner. Yes, that’s it! You have hidden fire in the Spleen and Stomach!”[7]

His confidence returned all at once. “The Stomach opens into the mouth. Your mouth ulcers must mean Stomach heat. I’ll clear it for you. Take some Xiehuang San!”[8]

The driver had been left bewildered, almost ready to believe him. But at that, he exploded.

“So you’re treating me by process of elimination?”

“That’s not what I meant…”

“Like hell it isn’t! You’re a quack. You’ve given me the wrong medicine several times, and the more I take, the worse I get! You forced me to have tuina, and now you want to treat me by process of elimination?”

“What do you think we are? Your guinea pigs? You’re just going to try things on us one after another? I’m reporting you. And I’m going to the media. I’ll make sure everyone knows what a crooked clinic this is!”

Everyone’s expression changed.

If he went through with it, Mingxin Clinic really could be ruined!

Reader Notes

↩︎ Tuina. This is the Chinese manual therapy mentioned earlier in the series, involving massage and other hand techniques. Clara is distinguishing Ben’s repeat massage customers from people returning for his treatment of an illness. Source: Hong Kong Health Bureau — Chinese medicine interventions, tuina.↩︎ Cun, guan, and chi. These are the three traditional pulse positions along the radial artery at the wrist, collectively the cunkou region. They are positions along one artery, rather than three separate arteries. Source: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entries 856–859.↩︎ A soggy pulse. Ru mai, also called a soft pulse, is conventionally described as fine, soft, and superficial: felt under light pressure. “Deep” concerns the heavier pressure needed to detect a pulse. Textbook descriptions distinguish a deep, fine, weak pulse from a superficial, fine, soft one. Ben calls this pulse “deep and soggy” in the Chinese dialogue itself. His wording is preserved here. The terms describe traditional tactile assessments; the scene supplies no instrument readings. Source: Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine — Pulse qualities, superficial and deep categories (in Chinese).↩︎ Blood nourishing the Heart. In Chinese medicine, blood has a nourishing role, and the Heart is associated with shen, the mind or spirit. Insufficient nourishment of this functional system is traditionally linked with unsettled sleep and palpitations. “Qi and blood deficiency” names a traditional pattern; it does not establish a blood-test diagnosis of anemia. Ben uses this relationship to explain the woman’s poor sleep. His additional question about fatigue fits the same pattern. Whether he has identified it correctly is the question Evan is considering. Sources: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entries 73, 1122, and 1150; Hong Kong Department of Health — Maintaining a healthy mental state, qi and blood deficiency section (in Chinese).↩︎ Reading the complexion. Facial inspection is part of Chinese medicine’s wider practice of inspection, which also attends to vitality, posture, and the tongue. A rosy or sallow face is interpreted alongside other findings. The list of colors here follows Evan’s assessment; no further examination or laboratory result is supplied in this scene. Little Octopus is the familiar nickname used in earlier chapters. Source: Hong Kong Department of Health — Diagnostic Methods and Features of Chinese Medicine Practitioners, inspection section.↩︎ Daochi San. This is the formula Ben prescribed for the same patient’s mouth ulcers earlier in the story. Its traditional function is described as clearing Heart heat, promoting urination, and nourishing yin. San means a powder formula, though the name does not by itself specify how a preparation is taken. The formula name alone does not establish that this patient’s ulcers belong to that pattern. Source: Hong Kong Baptist University — Chinese Medicine Formulae Images Database, Dao Chi San (in Chinese).↩︎ The three burners. Upper, middle, and lower burner translate the three jiao, a traditional division of bodily regions and functions. The upper region includes Heart and Lung functions; the middle includes digestive functions associated with the Spleen and Stomach; the lower includes Kidney and bladder functions. They are not three literal furnaces. Ben is shifting between these categories after the earlier formulas failed. Zhibai Dihuang Wan is the yin-nourishing, heat-clearing formula he tried before Daochi San. Sources: WHO — Chinese medicine terminology, entries 207–210; Tri-Service General Hospital — Zhibai Dihuang Wan (in Chinese).↩︎ Xiehuang San and hidden fire. Xiehuang San is a named herbal formula traditionally associated with hidden or constrained fire in the Spleen and Stomach, a heat-pattern description used in discussions of mouth sores and related symptoms. The formula name is kept in pinyin to distinguish it from the two earlier prescriptions. In this scene Ben proposes it; the driver has not taken it, and no response to it has been observed. His claim that the Stomach “opens into the mouth” is retained as his wording. Source: Beijing University of Chinese Medicine — Qingwei San, comparison with Xiehuang San (in Chinese).