Lamb Soup with Ginger, Ginger Root, and Carrots，From *Proven Tea, Decoction, and Soup Recipes for Common Ailments*,Warmly tonifies the spleen and kidneys. Suitable for menstrual cramps caused by deficiency-cold.
because it runs warm overall, this decoction is best avoided in yin-deficient, fire-prone constitutions; in the absence of frank deficiency, or where an excess or heat pattern prevails, indiscriminate warming tonic use is inadvisable; warming tonics readily stir heat and burden the spleen; caution is advised where dampness-heat or food stagnation accumulates in the middle
Commentary
With ginger as the sovereign, of warm nature and pungent flavor, entering the Lung, Spleen, Stomach, it disperses cold, relieves cough and harmonizes the stomach, and this opening sets the main therapeutic direction. These are joined ministerially by dried ginger (hot in nature and pungent in flavor, with Spleen, Stomach, Heart, Lung tropism, warms the middle and disperses cold, revives yang and dries dampness), and lamb ribs (of warm nature and sweet flavor, entering the Spleen, Kidney, Stomach, warms the middle, tonifies qi, and invigorates kidney yang), reinforcing the sovereign’s main effect. Finished with carrots, harmonizing the stomach and supporting dietary nourishment, and scallions, harmonizing the stomach and supporting dietary nourishment, and granulated sugar, acting as the envoy to harmonize the various ingredients, the formula attains a regulated, neither-excess nor-deficient balance. Together the herbs converge on this action, in accord with the qi stagnation and blood stasis pattern.