Yin Qiao Tang 銀翹湯

Clear the Lingering Heat, Restore the Fluids

Yín Qiáo Tāng — the Honeysuckle and Forsythia Decoction — is Si Jin Bao’s concentrated decoction of Wu Ju-Tong’s classical warm-disease formula: dispersing lingering Wind-Heat while enriching the Yin and fluids that a warm fever begins to consume.

Where a warm, feverish illness first strikes the surface, it can settle and smolder — drying the throat, raising thirst, and leaving a fever slow to break. This decoction was built for exactly that phase: it clears the Heat that remains and replenishes the fluids the Heat has dried. Si Jin Bao renders the classical formula as a concentrated, alcohol-free decoction.

From the Warm-Disease Canon

Yín Qiáo Tāng appears in the Wēn Bìng Tiáo Biàn — the Systematic Differentiation of Warm Pathogen Diseases — Wu Ju-Tong’s 1798 treatise that first organized the treatment of warm, febrile, epidemic illness into a coherent system.

Where the celebrated Yín Qiáo Sǎn, a ten-herb powder, vents Wind-Heat at the very surface, this decoction answers the phase that follows: warm Heat lingering as it begins to consume the Yin and fluids, leaving thirst, a dry throat, and a fever slow to resolve. It clears the Heat that remains and restores what the Heat has dried. Its reach is well documented — the modern physician Qín Bó-Wèi drew on the formula widely across warm-febrile disease.

Wind-Heat Injuring the Yin · 風熱傷陰

The pattern is warm Wind-Heat — fever, sore throat, cough, headache, body aches — as it begins to scorch the fluids: thirst, a dry throat, irritability, and a fever that lingers rather than breaking cleanly.

Classical tongue & pulse: a red tongue (often with a red tip) and a thin yellow or scanty coating; a rapid pulse.

Six Herbs: Clear, Vent, Enrich

Jīn Yín Huā and Lián Qiào lead — clearing Heat, resolving toxicity, and dispersing the lingering Wind-Heat that keeps the throat sore and the fever burning. Dàn Zhú Yè clears Heat from the Heart and Stomach, eases irritability and thirst, and vents Heat downward through the urine.

Shēng Dì Huáng and Mài Mén Dōng enrich the Yin and generate fluids — replenishing the moisture the warm Heat has dried, for the parched throat and thirst. And Gān Cǎo clears Heat-toxin, soothes the throat, and harmonizes the formula so the whole works as one. Clear, vent, enrich.

When to Reach for It