Yan De-Xin is a famous 'old doctor' whose original theories and clinical work on aging have won him various prizes in China. It is well known that conventionally traditional Chinese medicine ascribes aging itself, and many of the diseases that accompany it, primarily to deficiency and decline, especially of the Kidneys and Spleen, and senility-combating formulas mostly stress supplementation of yin or yang. Once blood is static, other patterns may emerge, for example heat may be generated, fluids may fail to move resulting in the formation of phlegm, or failure of free flow may lead to deficiency, reflecting the theory that blood stasis is itself a secondary cause of disease.
Vacuity is the result, while stasis is the cause.
I have personally observed that, after entering the period of old age, human beings typically manifest marked symptoms of blood stasis. For example, the appearance of skin pigmentation, rough skin, sclerotic opacitis, and senile plaques are all typical manifestations of blood stasis. Among the commonly seen geriatric diseases such as arteriosclerosis, hypertension, coronary heart diseases, windstroke, senile dementia, prostatic hyperplasia, and diseases of vertebrae in the neck, the cause of these diseases and their clinical manifestations are all related to blood stasis. In this important book, Dr. Yan first lays down the theoretical foundations of his theory with references to many classics, and examines the symptoms and signs of blood stasis according to both Chinese and Western medicine. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to prescriptions used in the treatment of various diseases of senility, and here we can see how his theory is carried out in practice.