Summerheat

Hot summer weather as a cause of disease, or the disease caused by it. Summerheat bears upward and disperses: It tends to affect the upper body, giving rise to clouded head and dizziness. When it affects the heart spirit, it manifests in clouding collapse and loss of consciousness. Dispersing means that it causes the interstices to open and discharge. This causes great sweating that damages yīn. Because qì discharges with the liquid, summerheat also gives rise to qì vacuity. The resulting pattern of dual damage to qì and yīn is characterized by fatigue and lack of strength, shortness of breath, scorching hot skin, thirst with large fluid intake, and a red tongue scantly covered with liquid.

Distinction is made between summerheat-heat and summerheat-damp. Summerheat-heat is exposure to the heat of summer; this is called summerheat stroke, and is what English speakers normally refer to as sunstroke or heatstroke. Summerheat-damp refers to certain externally-contracted diseases occurring in hot weather, that in China used to be loosely called summerheat disease, and that includes summerheat warmth, which is equivalent to infectious encephalitis B. Summerheat-heat is associated with torrid summer weather, whereas summerheat-damp is associated with hot humid weather. This difference is reflected in signs: summerheat-heat is marked by high fever, thirst, heart vexation, absence of sweating, and a surging pulse. High fever can easily damage qì and fluids, causing lack of strength, short hasty breathing, and dry tongue fur. Summerheat-damp, by contrast, is marked by fluctuating generalized heat, fatigued limbs, poor appetite, oppression in the chest, nausea and vomiting, abnormal stool, short voidings of reddish urine, soggy pulse, and thick slimy tongue fur. Summerheat-heat patterns are essentially heat patterns, whereas summerheat-damp is heat with dampness complications.

See summerheat-heat; summerheat-damp.