Aromatic herbs · fang cao

At a glance

Pinyin

fāng cǎo

Simplified

芳草

Literal

芳 fāng — fragrant; 草 cǎo — herb, plant. The binome covers the sweet-smelling, warming herbs that a wealthy household could afford, and chapter 40 forbids them to the very people who can pay for them. Qibo's reason is not a moral one but a physical one: the qi of aromatic herbs is fine, the qi of mineral drugs is fierce, and both are 急疾堅勁 — hurried, swift, hard and unyielding. A patient whose heart is not slow and whose person is not harmonious cannot carry them. The chapter's social observation is exact: heat-within and wasting-within are illnesses of the rich, and the two classes of remedy that the rich can command are the two classes that their condition cannot bear. Aromatic herbs drive to madness, 發狂; mineral drugs to derangement, 發瘨. What is forbidden is not the herb but the meeting of two hot, swift qi inside a body already burning.

Shuowen

《說文解字》：芳，香草也——**本義為草之香者**；艸（草），百芔也——**本義為百卉之總名**。「芳」讀 fāng、**本篇4見**；「草」讀 cǎo、**本篇4見**；**「芳草」4見**。**其氣「美」（「美」讀 měi），其用「發狂」**（「狂」讀 kuáng**本篇3見**）；**與「石藥」對舉**——**芳草之氣美而誘之，石藥之氣悍（「悍」讀 hàn）而迫之**，**其失一也**。**「緩心和人」之「和」（「和」讀 hé）讀 hé**。