White Ginseng Chicken Soup，From *Proven Tea, Decoction, and Soup Recipes for Common Ailments*,Strengthens the spleen and promotes weight gain. Suitable for simple emaciation.
the whole decoction leans warm; use with caution in those with yin deficiency and internal heat or lingering excess heat; 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 white ginseng as the sovereign, warm in nature and sweet, slightly bitter in flavor, with Spleen, Lung, Heart, Kidney tropism, it greatly tonifies yuan qi, restores collapse and generates fluids, and this opening sets the main therapeutic direction. The ministerial layer, shiitake mushrooms (nature neutral, flavor sweet, channeled into the Spleen, Stomach, supports the upright, tonifies deficiency, strengthens the spleen, and opens the appetite), and hen (of warm nature and sweet flavor, entering the Spleen, Stomach, tonifies qi and blood and warms the middle), lends support that reinforces the sovereign’s main effect. Finished with scallions, harmonizing the stomach and supporting dietary nourishment, and ginger, acting as the envoy to harmonize the various ingredients, the formula attains a regulated, neither-excess nor-deficient balance. The combined effect is tailored to the spleen-stomach weakness pattern.