This is a treatment method for the syndrome of fire hyperactivity due to yin deficiency with the drugs which are cold and cool in property and have the action of tonifying yin to reduce pathogenic fire so that the eyesight is improved. The method is applicable to ocular diseases manifesting such common symptoms as dryness of eyeball, slight hyperemia of bulbar conjunctiva, alternative starlike nebula of cornea, miosis or platycoria, high intraocular pressure, blurred vision and the general symptoms and signs of tidal fever with red cheeks, feverish sensation in palms and soles, dizziness and vexation, bitter taste in the mouth and dry throat, red tongue with a scanty coating and thready-rapid pulse.

Clinically, there are many different ocular diseases caused by fire hyperactivity due to yin deficiency, so further syndrome differentiation must be carried out when the method is used to treat the specific disease. Redness of canthi, vexation and sleepless, for example, may arise from deficient fire of the heart meridian; slight hyperemia of bulbar conjunctiva and dry nose and throat from deficient fire of lung meridian; and corneal nebula, mild redness of eyelid and irritability from deficient fire of liver meridian. Therefore, the involved viscera and tissues should be carefully considered in the selection of recipes and drugs in treatment.

Since the herbal drugs for the nourishing yin to reduce pathogenic fire are often tonic and greasy in nature, patients with ophthalmopathy due to exopathogen and those with spleen and stomach deficiency or unrelieved pathogenic damp contraindicate the method.