“冬病夏治穴位贴敷”择时初探

Preliminary study on timing of “acupoint-application therapy for preventing and treating winter diseases in summer”

从伏日、天干的历史源流可知,"三伏天"应该被理解为在气象学不够发达的古代,古人通过历法来推算一年中最潮湿闷热时间段的方法;冬病夏治以天之阳补人体之阳,故在"三伏天"时节进行疗效最佳,但中国幅员辽阔,环境多样,"三伏天"推算没能考虑地域差异,其天干五行说法亦不可取,故"冬病夏治穴位贴敷"的择时应因地制宜以提高疗效。通过对近10年"三伏天"与非"三伏天"时段贴敷比较的临床观察可发现,对于广东等华南沿海地区,"冬病夏治穴位贴敷"时间窗更长;而东北地区夏季温度较低,常规治疗疗效难维持。通过比较2017年每日湿温指数推测,对于北京地区,在七月八月进行"冬病夏治穴位贴敷"的疗效与在"三伏天"贴敷可能无明显差异,而选择特定节气治疗则可能收获更好疗效。

From the history of the “dog days” and heavenly stems, we can see that the “dog days” should be understood as the method of using the traditional Chinese calendar to calculate the most humid and hot period of the year in ancient times when the meteorology was not fully developed. “Human should comply with the nature to keep healthy” is one of the basic theories in traditional Chinese medicine. Since “dog days” is the hottest, which means one can get more energy from the sun （ yang ） to defeat the cold disease in winter （ yin ）, acupoint-application therapy is always done in “dog days”. However, China is vast and has diverse environments, the ancient prediction of “dog days” is certainly not able to consider regional differences, moreover, the theory, which the Heavenly Stems matches the Five Elements, is not practicable nowadays. So, in order to improve the efficacy, the timing of “acupoint-application therapy” should be based on local climate conditions. According to the reviewing of the clinical observations of taking “acupoint-application therapy” in different time windows （“dog days” and “non-dog days”） in the past 10 years, we can find that in Guangdong and other coastal areas in south China, the time window is much longer; whereas in north China, where summer is cool and short but winter is freezing and long, the improvement from the treatment can’t maintain too long. In the end, by comparing the temperature-humidity index in Beijing 2017, we conjectured that in July and August in Beijing, there is no significant difference in the efficacy of acupoint-application therapy taken in “dog days” or “non-dog days”, however, one may get better efficacy in particular solar terms.