Child's Urine

Traditional Use

Primary Actions

• Nourishes Yin and descends deficiency fire - Tong Bian is an old special medicinal substance used when heat signs arise from yin depletion, especially coughing or bleeding with dryness and internal heat.
• Stops bleeding while cooling the blood - classical indications include nosebleed, hemoptysis, hematemesis, and other bleeding presentations attributed to heat or consumptive irritation.
• Dispels blood stasis from trauma or postpartum retention - it appears in old records for traumatic pain, congealed blood, and postpartum faintness or pain where stasis and fluid loss coexist.
• Functions as a medicated guide or formula vehicle as much as a stand-alone substance - in older prescribing, Tong Bian often directs mineral or blood-moving medicinals downward while tempering excessive heat.

Secondary Actions

• Tong Bian is largely a historical materia medica item and is rarely used in contemporary practice except as a textual reference, because hygiene, ethics, and safer substitutes have changed clinical norms.
• Many modern formula write-ups preserve Tong Bian only as a historical preparation note and explicitly omit it from present-day dispensing.

Classic Formulas

• Hua Rui Shi San (花蕊石散) - classical emergency bleeding formula traditionally taken with warmed Tong Bian to guide the calcined minerals inward and downward while transforming stasis.
• Xiao Ding Feng Zhu (小定风珠) - older yin-fluid depletion formula in which Tong Bian appears as a minor fluid-nourishing, downward-guiding component.
• Sheng Hua Tang historical preparations (生化汤旧法) - some older postpartum methods record Tong Bian as a preparation liquid, though modern practice omits it.

Classical References

• TCM Wiki identifies Tong Bian under the broader Ren Niao / Urina Hominis tradition and gives actions of nourishing yin, lowering fire, stopping bleeding, and dissipating blood stasis.
• Me and Qi formula monographs for Hua Rui Shi San, Da Ding Feng Zhu, and Sheng Hua Tang all preserve Tong Bian as a historical vehicle or ingredient while noting that it is generally no longer used in modern practice.
• IMPORT NOTE: the XLSX stub labeled this item as 'Child's Dung,' but Tong Bian (童便) refers to child's urine, historically from healthy prepubescent boys.