Xiao Chai Hu Tang

The Shaoyang pattern, in Chinese medicine terms: being caught halfway, hot and cold by turns, with a bitter taste and no appetite. Later herbalists also used it when tension upset the digestion. It's a food supplement and isn't intended for any medical condition.

Ah, that's because Zhang Zhongjing also wrote a bigger, stronger one, Da Chai Hu Tang (Major Bupleurum), with rhubarb and a few other herbs thrown in. Xiao just means small, so this is the gentler of the two.

It's two in the morning and two in the evening, which makes four a day, so you'll get fifteen days out of a bottle of 60.

Yes, a couple, so bear with us. In Japan there were rare but serious lung reactions reported with Sho-saiko-to, mostly in people who were also having interferon injections, so please never take it alongside interferon. Baikal skullcap's been linked to rare liver reactions as well. Got a liver or lung condition, take regular medication, or you're pregnant or breastfeeding? Check with your GP first. And if you get a dry cough, feel breathless or notice your skin going yellow, stop and get advice.

Pretty much, yes. It's the same formula from the same source, with the same seven herbs, though Japanese makers have their own methods, so the finished products aren't quite identical.

Both have bupleurum. Xiao Yao San nourishes Blood and looks after the Spleen, for a wound-up, tired feeling. Xiao Chai Hu Tang is about the Shaoyang hinge, with more of a hot-and-cold, bitter-mouthed picture. Different jobs.