Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

Before Evan can head downstairs, Clara asks him to watch a video.

“Ahem…” Alex looked embarrassed. “I’ve only just started my time off. I haven’t had a chance yet. Besides, the pharmacy keeps those medicines under tight control. They won’t release any.”

Evan nodded. “All right. When we go down to Mingxin Clinic, I’ll boil up a little fuzi for you to taste.”[1]

“Right. Right.” Alex drew in a breath as he agreed.

“Remember to pay,” Clara put in. “I had to pay for those medicines myself.”

“Right. Of course.” Alex wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Evan looked around. “All right, let’s go downstairs. I need to get to work. Clara, stay up here and look after your dad. Call me if anything happens.”

“Wait.” Clara stopped him again.

“Hmm?” Evan turned back.

Clara took out her phone. “Evan, I think you should see this.”

“What is it?”

She opened Douyin, the short-video app, searched for “Dr. Cinnamon,” and selected the most popular video. Its title read: “I’ve Heard Eating These Two Things Together Is Terrifying. Today Imperial Physician Miao Risks His Life to Try.”

Evan and Alex leaned in to watch.

A small, thin man in a white coat popped into view.

“Hello, everyone. I’m Imperial Physician Miao. A little while ago, we published a myth-busting article about incompatible foods. Someone online said an elderly woman had been hospitalized with poisoning because she’d eaten persimmons and crab together. Ooh…” He made an exaggerated face, sucking air through his teeth.

“People asked me to debunk it. So where did this claim come from? I went back and carefully searched the classics. It turns out it’s from the Jinkui Yaolue, Essentials from the Golden Cabinet. It says persimmons and crab both belong to fire, so fire counteracts fire and makes them poisonous. Oh, once I heard it came from Chinese medicine, I felt much better.” He patted his chest and let out a long sigh of relief.

Clara paused the video.

Evan and Alex frowned at the same time.

“Does the Golden Cabinet say that?” Alex asked doubtfully. “I haven’t read it as often as Dr. Xu, but I’ve still read it dozens of times. There isn’t a single mention of persimmons in the whole book. As for crab…”

“There are three passages,” Evan said. “First: ‘Crabs whose eyes face one another, whose legs are mottled and whose eyes are red, must not be eaten.’

“Second: ‘Crabs before the frost are often poisonous. Only when cooked may they be eaten.’ Third: ‘For poisoning from eating crab, a remedy: boil perilla to obtain its liquid… or pound perilla to extract its juice.’”[2]

Alex nodded, then asked in puzzlement, “And what’s ‘fire counteracts fire’ supposed to mean? Crab is cold in nature. So are persimmons. Besides, there’s never been any such thing as fire counteracting fire in the five phases. Did he actually look any of this up?”

Clara shrugged.

“And incompatible foods cause poisoning?” Alex went on. “In Chinese medicine, that counteracting relationship is beneficial. It’s good for the body. Liver wood restrains Spleen earth, for example, keeping Spleen earth from becoming congested. Problems only come when the restraint is too weak, too strong, or works in reverse.[3]

“Take crab. It’s cold in nature. That’s why you cook it with yellow rice wine and fresh ginger or perilla. All three are warming. The warmth counteracts the cold so it doesn’t harm the Stomach.

“And when you eat it, you dip it in vinegar, which is warming too. People often add minced ginger to the vinegar. They drink yellow rice wine with crab for the same reason. Counteracting is beneficial.

“Whether the two together cause poisoning, I honestly don’t know. But someone with deficiency cold in the Spleen and Stomach—someone with poor digestion who likes warmth and dislikes cold, whose stomach feels uncomfortable after cold water—will feel worse if they eat too much crab and persimmon. Both are cold in nature. They’ll worsen the deficiency cold and make diarrhea more likely.

“If your Spleen and Stomach are healthy, eating a bit more is fine. Just have something warming as well to balance it out. That’s what counteracting means in Chinese medicine. How can he spout such nonsense—and slander Zhongjing while he’s at it!”[4]

Alex had talked himself into a temper.

Evan’s expression darkened too.

“Keep watching,” Clara said. “There’s more.” She started the video again.

“Of course, as a doctor, I don’t believe in these so-called ancient classics. I need actual cases. I went through all the case records and didn’t find a single hospitalization caused by eating persimmons and crab together.

“Then I looked for controlled experiments. In 2006, Lanzhou University and Harbin Medical College tested incompatible foods. Volunteers ate those combinations, including persimmons and crab. Nothing happened, so I felt even more reassured.”

He peeled the persimmon and opened the crab on the table, then took large mouthfuls of both. Suddenly he clutched his chest and grimaced as tragic music played.

Two seconds later, he was back to normal. “See? I’m fine.” He spread his hands, and the video ended.

Evan and Alex were both frowning.

“He’s a typical Chinese medicine hater,” Alex said angrily. “The kind who makes up nonsense about the classics.”

“Clara, did you look up that controlled experiment he mentioned?” Evan asked.

She nodded. “I did. There wasn’t one in 2006. Lanzhou University did an experiment in 2011. They had volunteers try more than twenty foods—chicken with sesame, pork with lily bulbs, cucumber with peanuts, spinach with honey, and so on. But not crab and persimmon.”

Alex’s eyes widened. “He makes up the Chinese medicine, and he doesn’t even check the paper he’s using as evidence? So he’s making that up too?”

“Yes.” Clara nodded.

“Amazing,” Alex said, sounding impressed. “How many followers does he have?”

“About thirty or forty million across all his platforms.”

Alex was startled. “That many? And this is the best he can do?”

Clara spread her hands.

“Besides,” Alex said, “he doesn’t check his sources, and then he just tries the food himself. Aren’t Western doctors always telling us we’ve only got individual cases, that the patient just happened to get better? But if he eats something and feels fine, his single case counts as proof? Forget crab and persimmon for a moment. With that attitude toward medicine, he hardly seems like a doctor.”[5]

The chapter was taken from the NovelPhoenix posting without consent, though readers can support the author by reading it there.

Clara opened her phone again. “He’s made plenty of other myth-busting videos.”

There was Imperial Physician Miao again.

“Skipping breakfast is fine. Your mom just doesn’t want you sleeping later than her. She’s looking for an excuse to get you out of bed.”

“It’s fine not to sleep at night. There’s no such thing as a liver detoxification time, or fixed hours when this or that channel is active. If you want to stay up late, go right ahead.”[6]

“Don’t listen to people who say women can’t have cold food or drinks during their periods. Period pain is a normal physiological response. A few painkillers every month won’t make you develop tolerance. If you want ice cream during your period, eat it. If you want an iced drink, have one. Women should treat themselves well.”[7]

They watched just those three.

Evan and Alex’s brows were drawn tight.

Alex was dumbfounded. “That’s ridiculous. Poor eating habits can easily damage the Spleen and Stomach. Breakfast in particular needs to warm the middle, dispel cold, and nourish the Spleen and Stomach. Once those are damaged, all kinds of illnesses follow.

“And even if you ignore Chinese medicine, I remember Western research on this too. Don’t they say skipping breakfast has plenty of harmful effects? And turning night into day—what doctor would recommend that?[8]

“That last one is the worst, telling women to eat cold foods during their periods. I’m not saying no woman can. If a woman has abundant qi and blood, it may not do much harm. After all, when healthy qi remains within, pathogenic factors cannot invade.

“But what about women with cold pain during their periods, with pathogenic cold lodged in the lower burner and cold congealing with blood stasis? The ones whose lower abdomens feel cold and painful, and whose pain eases when they put something warm against them?[9]

“Won’t eating cold things during their periods make the pain worse? And his brilliant solution is painkillers. Pain is the body’s way of protecting itself and warning you. Cut your finger, and it hurts when you touch the cut.

“That’s your body telling you to leave it alone and let it heal. It’s the same with period pain. Normally, menstruation leaves women tired and may cause a little pain or discomfort.

“But if it hurts badly, something must be wrong inside. The body is telling you to treat it. Instead, you take a few painkillers to fool yourself into not feeling the pain and ignore the underlying problem?

“If you switch to healthier habits in time, the body may adjust and put itself right. But he tells people to carry on like that. Won’t it just get more painful? Then you fool the brain with painkillers again, and the problem stays there, doesn’t it?”

Alex gave Clara a baffled look. “Is this really what a medical blogger with forty million followers has to say?”

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

↩︎ Fuzi. This aconite medicinal material comes from the plant’s lateral root. Evan is proposing a return to the tasting exercise discussed earlier; no medicine is prepared or tasted in this chapter. The passage gives neither a dose nor a preparation specification. Aconite alkaloids can cause serious poisoning, including dangerous heart-rhythm disturbances. The distinction between a teaching proposal and an action actually carried out matters here. Sources: Hong Kong Department of Health — Aconite medicinal materials and safety (in Chinese); Department of Health — Chinese Herbs II, aconite roots (in Chinese).↩︎ The Golden Cabinet passages. The Jinkui Yaolue is a medical classic associated with Zhang Zhongjing, whom Alex later calls Zhongjing. Its section on animal foods contains the three crab passages Evan recalls. The transcription checked here specifies perilla seeds in the second juice preparation; the novel abbreviates that to perilla. “Cooked” is a provisional rendering of shu (熟); this draft has not resolved the phrase through a critical comparison of editions. These are historical quotations, distinct from modern evidence about food poisoning. Source: Jinkui Yaolue Fanglun — chapter 24, food prohibitions and remedies (Chinese transcription).↩︎ Restraint and “incompatible foods.” The same Chinese word, xiangke, underlies the popular warning about foods that supposedly clash and Alex’s account of normal restraint. In five-phase theory, wood, fire, earth, metal, and water describe relationships, including wood restraining earth. Ordinary restraint helps maintain balance; excessive or reversed restraint describes a disturbance. Alex invokes the Liver–wood and Spleen–earth relationship to explain this distinction. It is a traditional functional model, rather than a chemical explanation of food poisoning. “Fire counteracts fire” is the video’s disputed claim. Sources: WHO — TCM terminology, entries 35–39; Beijing University of Chinese Medicine — Five-phase relationships (in Chinese).↩︎ Cold and warm food natures. In Chinese dietary theory, a food’s “nature” describes its traditional effects, separately from its serving temperature. A hot cooked crab can therefore still be described as cold in nature. The official materials below classify persimmon as slightly cold and ginger as warm, and discuss the customary pairing of crab with perilla. Alex applies that framework to deficiency cold in the Spleen and Stomach, a traditional pattern involving impaired digestive function and a preference for warmth. His conclusions about individual tolerance and quantities remain his explanation. Sources: Hong Kong Department of Health — Food and Chinese medicine, fruits and constitution sections; Department of Health — Chinese Herbs, perilla section (in Chinese).↩︎ A demonstration and a controlled experiment. A controlled study compares outcomes between groups under a defined design. A presenter eating two foods once and feeling well supplies an observation about that occasion; it cannot establish what happens to everyone. The dates, institutions, and food lists disputed here are the characters’ accounts. An original report matching Clara’s precise 2011 description has not been verified for this draft. The source explains study design and does not authenticate either speaker’s historical claim. Source: NCCIH — How to Make Sense of a Scientific Journal Article, study design.↩︎ Channels, clocks, and sleep. “Channels” refers to the traditional meridian network; the video’s reference to their hours invokes a traditional timetable of activity. That framework is separate from research on sleep and biological rhythms. Rejecting a fixed liver “detoxification hour” does not establish that staying awake through the night has no consequences. NHLBI describes effects of insufficient sleep on attention, mood, metabolism, and physical health. The sweeping reassurance in this clip belongs to the presenter, while Alex’s response follows below. Source: NHLBI — How Sleep Affects Your Health.↩︎ Period pain and pain relief. Dysmenorrhea means painful menstruation. ACOG distinguishes primary dysmenorrhea, involving prostaglandins and uterine contractions, from secondary dysmenorrhea associated with an underlying disorder. NSAIDs can reduce prostaglandin production and its effects, rather than simply concealing pain from the brain. The chapter does not identify which painkiller the presenter means, so his broad assurance about tolerance cannot be assessed as a claim about a named medicine. The clinical source does not establish his further claim about cold food and drinks. Source: ACOG — Dysmenorrhea: Painful Periods.↩︎ Breakfast and the scope of a study. Alex recalls research without identifying a paper. Studies of breakfast examine particular populations and outcomes, which cannot automatically be extended to every person or every health effect. The trial cited below compared daily breakfast with morning fasting in lean adults over six weeks, examining energy balance and related measurements. That limited question differs from both the presenter’s blanket reassurance and Alex’s broad account of harm. “Warming the middle” in his preceding speech refers to the traditional digestive region. Source: Betts and colleagues — The causal role of breakfast in energy balance and health, randomized trial.↩︎ Cold, blood stasis, and the lower burner. The lower burner, or lower jiao, is the region below the navel in the traditional three-region model. “Cold congealing with blood stasis” describes a pattern in which cold is understood to impede the movement of blood; pain eased by warmth is one of its features. It does not mean a blood clot confirmed by imaging. Alex’s earlier “healthy qi” quotation invokes the body’s traditional resistance to pathogenic influences. His account of cold foods worsening particular women’s pain is an application of that framework. Source: WHO — TCM terminology, entries 210, 365, 428, and 1030.