What are the five flavors of traditional Chinese medicine?

This article was originally published in chinese medicine modern distance education of china (No.1 issue, 2008), and was reprinted by Global Chinese Medicine Network. Please do not reprint without permission.

Henan Puyang Oilfield General Hospital and Peak 45700 1

Keywords: the theory of medicinal properties of five traditional Chinese medicines

Five flavors refer to five basic flavors: sour, bitter, sweet, pungent and salty. For a long time, the five flavors, as one of the main contents of the property theory of traditional Chinese medicine, have played an active role in summarizing some functional characteristics of drugs, explaining the effective principle of drugs, guiding the correct use of drugs in clinic and so on, which has been valued by doctors in past dynasties. However, the record and discussion of the five flavors have been in a rather chaotic state, which is not conducive to the academic development of traditional Chinese medicine. What is the essence of five flavors of traditional Chinese medicine? So far, no consensus has been reached. On the basis of consulting ancient and modern literature and combining with my own experience, the author puts forward some humble opinions in order to teach my colleagues.

1, the taste of the mouth is five flavors.

The original meaning of five flavors refers to the true taste of drugs and food [1], which is known by mouth taste. For example, ginger tastes spicy, licorice tastes sweet, coptis tastes bitter, ebony tastes sour, kelp tastes salty and so on. These are all reflections of the true taste of drugs. The legend of "Shennong tasted a hundred herbs" is a true portrayal of the ancient working people in China who tasted medicine and knew how to practice medicine. Ancient doctors said a lot about determining the taste of drugs through the mouth. For example, Zhang Jingyue said, "Every time you take a medicine, you must taste it one by one" (The Book of Pure Moon). Shi Shoutang emphasized that any medicinal flavor "must be tasted before it is correct" (Yi Yuan). Yang Huating pointed out in "Textual Research on Drugs" that "all the drugs collected in the book have been tasted personally, even as poisonous as arsenic, so it is necessary to taste them." All the above scholars have emphasized that the taste of drugs must be "carefully tasted" and "personally tasted", which is the first choice and basic way to determine the taste of drugs.

Someone [2] made a statistical analysis of the medicinal tastes of 400 kinds of commonly used Chinese medicines. Results: ① The taste of the drugs recorded in modern literature is the same as that of oral drugs, accounting for 35.7%~42%, and the difference accounts for 58% ~ 64.3%; ② The earliest recorded herbs, 32% taste the same as oral herbs, and 68% taste different; ③ The drugs recorded in the earliest literature are 56% the same as those recorded in modern literature, while 44% are different. The results show that the taste of ancient and modern drugs is not completely consistent with the actual taste, less than half of which are the same, while more than 60% are different. The reason is the error of taste measurement or the mixture of other taste measurement methods.

2. The symbol of function is five flavors.

The taste of medicine originates from the mouth. In the long-term medical practice, the ancients found that drugs with different tastes had different functions, which linked the taste and function of drugs. Su Wen, for example, first summed up the relationship between taste and function in Dirty Qi Law, that is, "pungent, sour, sweet, slow, bitter, firm, salty and soft". On this basis, later generations have further supplemented and developed it, making it perfect day by day. For example, "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "Sour people can be astringent, bitter people can drain, dry and firm, sweet people can make up and slow down, pungent people can disperse and moisten, salty people can be soft and firm, and weak people can benefit from it. These five flavors are also useful. " There are also many cases of this statement in the current Chinese medicine textbooks.

With the deepening of clinical practice and the gradual accumulation of medication experience, the understanding of drug effects is constantly enriched, and the effects of some drugs are difficult to be explained by the relationship between taste and effect. Therefore, the method of estimating taste by functional category is adopted. For example, anything with divergent effect is defined as pungent taste, anything with nourishing effect is defined as sweet taste, and so on. This method of determining taste by function has been recorded in ancient and modern literature. Such as realgar, "Ben Jing" means "bitter and flat"; "Don't record" means "sweet, warm and poisonous"; The theory of medicinal properties says "pungent, poisonous". The records of different schools are different, each holding one end. On the basis of clinical practice and function, Ben Cao Jing Shu holds that "the medicine with hard temperature should be used to examine its function." ..... This medicine tastes bitter and bitter, which can dry dampness and kill insects. ".By analogy, according to the known function of the drug, the taste of the drug is inferred, so that the taste of the drug is separated or partially separated from the taste directly felt by the oral cavity, which becomes the symbol of the drug function. It comes from clinical practice and is inferred from the actual curative effect of drugs, so it has more direct and specific guiding significance for clinical medication.

As can be seen from the above, although the understanding of the five flavors of traditional Chinese medicine has experienced the development process inferred from the taste concept, it has not revealed the relationship between taste and effect well so far, and there are various drawbacks: ① Limitation: As a symbol of drug function, the five flavors embody the characteristics of drug function, but in a nutshell, they are nothing more than divergence, circulation of qi, blood circulation, dryness and dampness, diarrhea, purging fire and depression. However, there are thousands of drugs, which involve many functions. Therefore, the author thinks that the five flavors can only partially reflect the functional characteristics of drugs. ② Contingency: There is no essential relationship between five flavors and functions, and there is no strict correspondence.

Such as insect repellent, "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "All pesticides are bitter and bitter, but it is different to make a gentleman sweet and kill insects." It shows that bitter medicine can kill insects, and sweet medicine can also kill insects. Bitter, pungent and sweet drugs can kill insects in clinic, but not all drugs can kill insects. It can only be determined by clinical medication practice and reference efficacy, but not by the taste of the medicine. ③ One-sidedness: Due to different experiences and understandings, the method of estimating taste is subjective and random, and its one-sidedness and contingency exist objectively. If it is salty, it can be soft and strong. According to the fifth edition of Traditional Chinese Medicine, there are 44 kinds of salty drugs. Only 9 of them have the effect of softening and resolving hard mass, only mirabilite and Cistanche deserticola have the effect of softening and resolving hard mass, and the other 33 salt drugs have nothing to do with softening and resolving hard mass and diarrhea [3]. It can be said that the relationship between taste and effect is irregular, and there is a situation of generalizing, which lacks universal guiding significance. Therefore, from the clinical practice, it is imperative to strengthen the study of functional flavors and clarify the essence of five flavors.

The symbol of matter is five flavors.

Modern research has found that [4] there is a certain relationship between taste and chemical composition. For example, sour taste contains organic acids, sweet taste contains active ingredients such as sugars, bitter taste contains alkaloids and bitterness, salty taste contains inorganic substances such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, aluminum and iodine and other active ingredients, and spicy taste contains volatile oil. Generally speaking, different ingredients have different tastes. The complexity of traditional Chinese medicine components determines the diversity of taste. The results of this study endow the five flavors of traditional Chinese medicine with new contents, provide a material basis for the taste and efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine, open up ideas for the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine, and show a bright future.

It should be said that it is correct to use modern advanced scientific and technological means and methods to study the effective chemical components of traditional Chinese medicine and reveal the material basis of the five flavors. However, due to the late start of this research work, although it has begun to take shape, it still needs to continue to work hard to make a breakthrough.

First of all, taste and chemical composition are both related and different. Chemical composition can not fully reveal the true meaning of the five flavors, let alone become its law. Taking pungent flavor as an example, someone [4] compared the percentage of volatile oil between 80 pungent drugs and 170 non-pungent drugs. Results: Among 80 kinds of irritating drugs, 58 kinds (72.5%) contained volatile oil, and 22 kinds (27.5%) did not. 170 kinds of non-irritating drugs, 30 kinds (15.9%) contain volatile oil, and 140 kinds (84. 1%) contain no volatile oil. The results showed that 27.5% of irritating drugs did not contain volatile oil, while 15.9% of non-irritating drugs contained volatile oil. It can be seen that volatile oil, as the material basis of pungent taste, can only explain most, but not all, and there are some exceptions that need our explanation. Generally speaking, at present, the research on the effective components of traditional Chinese medicine is basically guided by the theory of western medicine, looking for some active components from traditional Chinese medicine and finally synthesizing new drugs (western medicine). This kind of research ignores the theory of traditional Chinese medicine and does not combine the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine itself, so it is difficult to make a scientific explanation of the curative effect of traditional Chinese medicine.

To sum up, there are three main views on the essence of five flavors in traditional Chinese medicine, namely, taste theory determines taste by mouth; Functionalism is based on functional taste-determining substances and uses effective ingredients to determine taste. They all reveal some characteristics of the five flavors from different angles, but each has its own shortcomings and needs to be enriched and improved. Five flavors, as a theory of medication, focus on guiding clinical practice. Therefore, the essence of five flavors should be discussed with function as the core and efficacy as the basis, and be continuously developed and improved in clinical practice.