Robert Cran Clinic blog

A seasonal tip very often given verbally to patients when they are in clinic is worth extending to anyone and everyone who graces this blog with their presence.  By the way, thanks for being there, whoever you are!

Two ways of keeping cool in summer

There are two easy, everyday ways of keeping cool in summer:  a "don't" way and a "do" way.  The one means something you avoid getting from P&P, Woollies, Shoprite, Checkers or wherever, and the other involves something you should get from those stores or, maybe better, off the beaten track

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The "don't" way:  a fact of life known to Chinese doctors before the invention of the fridge

There is a principle known to Chinese doctors, a very important principle which explains many pathologies and what must be done to treat them.  This principle can elaborate itself into very complex formations which the advanced Chinese herbalist is required to be expert in; first elucidated in depth by the great genius of the Han Dynasty, Dr Zhang Zhonjing, and, even more importantly for our time, further elaborated, especially from the Qing Dynasty, as Wen Bing Xue, "Warm Disease Theory".  The latter is profoundly important in this age, so much so that even the simplest formula for treating on variety or the other of the common cold can't be properly understood and used without some reference to it.

The principle is that "Cold, once it enters the body, rapidly transforms into Heat".

In other words, supposing you really, really, really did catch an old-fashioned "cold", ie you had all the signs and symptoms of one variety or another of what Chinese doctors recognise as the Wind Cold category of external invasion, the coldness of this situation can only last a very short time, a matter of minutes or hours,  before it changes into a pathology of Heat.

However, in these days of domestic and office heating, grossly excessive consumption of heating substances such as alcohol, and the massively Heat-forming influence of life pressures on people's emotionality, it is very rare indeed to find a case of a real Wind Cold cold amongst consumers.  In cold houses of people who are less internally complicated in their hearts and who choose not to consume alcohol, this is where real Wind Cold can actually happen and last for a few days before transforming into Heat.

Therefore, if you want to stay cool in summer, don't try to assuage your Heat by taking cold stuff.  That means:

• avoid ice-cream
• avoid ice and cold drinks from the fridge
• avoid bingeing on mountains of salad and fruit in the mistaken belief that this is "healthy"

Think about it.  You take ice-cream on a hot day and you immediately feel in a way cooler.  Ask yourself how long does this feeling last?  And once it had stopped lasting, did you or did you not feel even more hot, and maybe wanted to have even more of that ice-cream or cold drink?

Well, just don't do it and you will remain cooler than otherwise!

The "do" way:  a Chinese herb or two you can easily find in your shops

You could go the Woollies way of getting your hands dirty.  Yes, get your hands really dirty with all that pristine clean, envrionmentally friendly plastic mountain which clutters your recycle bins (ever thought about those mountains?  Well, keep thinking...).

And then, on your way out,  cleanse your dirty hands by doing the holocaust routine on all those germs you got while handling the lovely clean plastic.

Anyhow there is something there, and in P&P and Shoprite and in Checkers and so on which doesn't necessarily come in plastic unless you do the middle-class splurge thing and have it ready chopped up so you have to find some other way of getting your hands dirty.

Or you could just go to Fruit & Veg City.  Or, even better, bumble down to Rodgers fruit and veg on the Kommetjie Road and get your hands on this Chinese herb, grown by real human beings who live near you.  Lovely carrots that still have personalities, pumpkins with wrinkles of character on their smiling faces, and Xi Gua.

Xi Gua.  Pronounced Hshee Gwah!

Xi Gua is a Chinese herb belonging to the Drain Fire subcategory of the Clear Heat category of herbs.

Each herb in this subcategory has its own unique personality, defined partly by properties which it has per se, and partly by how those properties are brought out or expressed according to the situations in which they are used and the combinations of other herbs in which they are used.

Xi Gua has a special property of Clearing Summerheat, the Heat that occurs in summer and which easily and rapidly penetrates the human body.  When Summerheat penetrates you, you can feel or look hot, or both.  When it penetrates you more deeply it can make you sick, eg sunstroke/heatstroke, or some variety of Summerheat "cold".

In summer the heat of the sun evaporates the moisture in the earth, producing Dampness in the environment.  This Dampness can also affect the human body.  Very often in summer a patient might be afflicted with Summerheat combined with this Dampness.

Summerheat can also penetrate the body rather quickly, rapidly progressing from the very Exterior Stage to one Stage deeper, known to Chinese doctors as the Yangming Channel Stage of penetration, or sometimes referred to in an important parallel classification as a Qi Level penetration.  The Yangming Channels of the body are the Stomach and Large Intestine.

Heat, once it has entered the body, begins to injure the Fluids.  At first it injures the Fluids slightly.  If left un halted, it can injure the Fluids more deeply.  Therefore it is necessary to see that the Yin Fluids of the body are correctly replenished as the summer day goes on.

Xi Gua beautifully addresses all these aspects of Summerheat

It does this by:

• clearing Summerheat Heat, because it has the Cool attribute
• draining Summerheat Damp, because its actions enter the Bladder
• clearing Heat from  the Yangming Channel stage, because its actions enter the Stomach Channel, or from the Qi Level because it influences the Level immediately deeper
• moistens the Fluids, since it has what is referred to as a Sweet attribute

In summer in China, people eat Xi Gua every day, all summer long.  The change from summer to autumn in China is very abrupt; the transition takes one day to happen and that's it.  For this reason, on the last day of summer, just before autumn starts, people in China binge on Xi Gua all day to clear the last remains of Summerheat from inside them.  Otherwise, Heat would linger and become what is known to Chinese doctors as a "Lurking Pathogen" which would show up in one form of ailment or disease or the other later on.

What you should do to stay cool

Obviously take Xi Gua.  Every day.  About one good slice per day, every day of summer.  But...

....at room temperature!  Why?  Because you don't want the chill from the fridge to transform into Heat once it's inside you!

What is Xi Gua?

Its Latin pharmaceutical name is Fructus Citrulli.  It is a large, sometimes very large fruit of the Cucurbitaceae Genus.  It needs no plastic packaging in its whole form because it has a thickish, hard skin to protect its insides; a skin which is nonetheless moist enough to surrender easily to the knife to cut a slice.  It is coloured medium-deep green, with paler green mottling.  It is a watermelon.