This article interprets LU Zhizheng’s academic view of coordination between dryness and dampness in its origin

development

etiology

pathogenesis and therapeutic principles. Dryness can easily hurt body fluid

and dampness can hurt the body insidiously and slackly. They can appear separately to be dryness disease and dampness disease

while they can also appear together or transform into each other

ending up in dryness-dampness disease. It’s hard to treat just one of them

so physicians need to treat both. When treating dampness

some moistening herbs need to be used to protect the body fluid

to avoid bitterness-coldness transforming into dryness to hurt Yin; when treating dryness

physicians should know that Yin-nourishing herbs are always greasy

so a few warming and moving herbs need to be added to avoid dampness occurring inside.