Bao He Tang (保和湯)

In 1481, the Jin-Yuan master Zhu Dan-xi — one of the four great masters of the Jin-Yuan dynasties — published a six-herb formula he had been refining for decades in his clinic in Yiwu. He called it Bao He Tang: Preserve Harmony. Five and a half centuries later, it remains one of the most prescribed formulas in Chinese medicine. The reason is simple: human beings still eat too much, eat too late, and eat the wrong things. Bao He Tang was built for exactly that patient.

The formula was built on a principle the Huang Di Nei Jing (黃帝內經) laid down more than two thousand years earlier — that the Stomach’s job is to descend. Su Wen Chapter 11 establishes that the Fu organs function by descending turbid Qi; when this descent is obstructed, the entire middle Jiao falls out of rhythm. The Ling Shu expands the teaching, describing how accumulated food generates heat, which in turn scorches fluids and produces phlegm.

The Nan Jing (難經), in its discussion of the five zang and six fu, calls the Stomach the “sea of grain and water” (水穀之海) — the root of acquired Qi. When the sea becomes congested, nothing downstream functions properly. Zhu Dan-xi’s formula addresses each link in this chain: the stagnation itself, the dampness the stagnation creates, and the heat that develops when food sits too long in the middle Jiao.

Bao He Tang is the definitive formula for Food Stagnation in the Stomach. This is an excess pattern of the middle Jiao, where undigested food sits and blocks the Stomach’s natural descending function. As the stagnation persists, dampness accumulates around it, and heat develops from the prolonged obstruction — all three layers must be addressed at once, which is exactly what this formula does.

Zhu Dan-xi built Bao He Tang to address three things in sequence: the stagnation itself, the dampness the stagnation creates, and the heat that develops when food sits too long in the middle Jiao.

Shan Zha leads the formula and goes straight after meat and fatty-food accumulation. Shen Qu and Lai Fu Zi extend the reach to grains, starches, and alcohol — and descend rebellious Qi so belching and reflux settle down. Ban Xia, Chen Pi, and Fu Ling (the Er Chen Tang core embedded within the formula) transform the dampness that always shows up when food sits. And Lian Qiao clears the heat that develops at the end of the chain.

That is why the formula has survived 544 years of clinical use. It is complete. It addresses the problem, the consequence of the problem, and the consequence of the consequence — in one balanced prescription.