The prescriptions for clearing away heat chiefly composed of drugs for clearing away heat, purging fire, cooling blood and removing toxin and applied in the treatment of interior heat.

In view of the difference in interior heat syndromes between qifen and xuefen, between warm-heat and summer-heat, between excess and deficiency, between zang and fu organs, prescriptions for clearing away heat are subdivided into prescriptions for clearing away heat from qifen, those for removing heat from yingfen and blood, those for clearing away heat and toxin, those for removing heat from zang-fu organs, those for eliminating asthenic heat, and those for clearing away summer-heat.

Prescriptions for clearing away heat from qifen are chiefly composed of drugs with the effect of clearing away heat from qifen, promoting the production of body fluid, and relieving dysphoria and thirst, which are applicable to the syndrome of excessive heat in qifen. Prescriptions for removing heat from yingfen and blood are chiefly composed of drugs with the effect of clearing away heat from yingfen and nourishing yin, cooling blood and removing stasis, which are applicable to the syndrome of heat accumulating in yingfen and xuefen. Prescriptions for clearing away heat and toxin are chiefly composed of drugs bitter in flavor and cool in property with the effect of purging fire, which are applicable to pestilence and virulent heat pathogen.

Prescriptions for removing heat from zang-fu organs are made up of drugs aimed at clearing away fire-heat from different zang or fu organs and applicable to the syndrome of heat dominant in a certain zang or fu organ. Prescriptions for clearing away heat of deficiency type are chiefly composed of drugs with the effect of clearing away heat, nourishing yin and expelling pathogenic factors, and applicable to the syndrome of yin impairment due to excessive heat. Prescriptions for clearing away summer-heat are applicable to the syndrome due to attack by pathogenic summer-heat.
     
Ingredients of the prescriptions for clearing away heat are mostly bitter in flavor and cool in property, therefore they should not be taken for a long time to prevent impairment of the stomach, and yin and yang. And drugs able to reinforce the spleen and stomach should be taken if necessary. Besides, great cautions must be paid by patients with constitutional weakness of the spleen and stomach marked by poor appetite and loose stool. In case of excessive interior heat, the phenomenon "Ju Yao" may appear by which is meant the patient vomits immediately when taking decoctions of this kind. To relieve or eliminate this phenomenon, the patient may either take the decoction warm or add to it some ginger juice.