The Method of Inducing Bowel Movements

Inducing bowel movements relieves constipation, and therefore, it can be used to treat a variety of syndromes as long as they involve constipation.

To sedate excess heat, this method involves treating the following three syndromes:

  1. The stomach-heat syndrome, which is characterized by periodic fever, delirium, abdominal fullness, abdominal pain worsening with massage, constipation, scorching and yellowish coating of the tongue with prickles or scorching, black, dry coating on a cleft tongue, and slow and sliding pulse.

  2. The toxic heat syndrome, which is characterized by high fever, feeling depressed and hurried, mental confusion, twitching, dry mouth and throat, constipation, bleeding, and skin eruptions.

  3. Heat in the internal organs, which gives rise to sore and swollen throat, ulcers in the mouth and on the tongue, swollen gums, nosebleed, bad breath, constipation, hot sensations in the chest and diaphragm regions, headache, pink eyes, ringing in the ears, feeling hurried and jumpy, and yellowish coating of the tongue.

To attack cold accumulations, this method is used in treating the internal coldness syndrome.

When a person consumes too much cold food with cold energy accumulating in the stomach and intestine, acute pain in the stomach and abdomen may occur that gets worse with massage. Or, when a person suffers from deficiency cold of the spleen and stomach, normal transformations and digestion are impaired, with the result that cold energy gets accumulated in the stomach and intestine, which may give rise to the following symptoms: abdominal pain that lessens with warmth, hardness felt with massage, thirst with craving for hot drink, constipation or difficult bowel movements, fear of the cold, cold limbs, and white and sliding coating of the tongue.

To lubricate the intestine to induce bowel movements, this method is used in treating the intestine-dryness syndrome for relief of constipation in older or weak patients or in pregnant women due to blood deficiency and shortage of fluids.