FONG WAN - Library

The acid or fire element in the blood of the stomach may cause
ulcers, just as the acid or fire element in the blood causes pimples to ap-
pear on the face. Many physicians mislead their patients to believe that
the acidity is in the contents of the stomach. Therefore they advise the
patients to have the stomach's contents pumped out. Sometimes they
find in the contents too much acid or lack of acid. They do not tell the
patients how the fire element works in the blood of the stomach and its
adjacent organs. Sometimes they find a lack of acid, then they advise
the taking of acid or acid forming foods into the stomach. Following
the advice of these physicians usually is the cause of canker sores in the
mouth and pimples on the face.
If either the stomach or the spleen is inflamed or weak, gas, pain,
vomiting, indigestion, biliousness, a grating sensation, an empty, annoying
feeling, after each meal, cancers or ulcers may result. When
the stomach is merely weak, or is lacking in the fire element, the food
may lie there undigested and cause continuous pain until it is vomited.
This condition causes many people to fear that they have cancers
or ulcers. Frequently surgeons operate upon the stomachs of people
thus afflicted, but upon finding neither cancers nor ulcers, sew them up
again without discovering the cause of the pain.
Weakness of the spleen of long standing causes protruding rectum
and bleeding after bowel movements, diarrhoea, dysentery, rupture, dis-
charge of mucus from the intestines, loss of appetite, displacement of the
stomach, a tired feeling and
weakness of the limbs. Physic
tends to weaken the spleen
and causes constipation. If
the bowels fail to move, do
not be in haste to take physic
unless there is a high fever,
for it is likely that they will
move naturally the next day.
The Chinese people, with the
exception of a few opium
smokers, are seldom troubled
with constipation.
Acute inflammation in the
stomach and spleen are the
The Stomach causes of hemorrhages, pim-
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