RESUMO
Objective To analyze dialectical thinking and medication laws of TCM master LI Ji-ren in treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA); To provide references for clinical medication. Methods Medical cases of RA in outpatient department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Wannan Medical College during January 2014 to June 2015 treated by Professor LI Ji-ren. SPSS18.0 statistical software was used to carry out frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and cluster analysis. Results The included medical cases covered 123 cases, 199 prescriptions and 211 kinds of medicine. The total medication frequency was 3503, with 52 kinds of high frequency medicine (>10%), including Astragali Radix, Angelicae Sinensis Radix, Scorpio, Spatholobi Caulix, and Sargentodoxae Caulix. 36 kinds of medicine belonged to Liver Meridian of Foot-Jueyin (69.2%); 21 kinds of medicine belonged to Kidney Meridian of Foot-Shaoyin (40.4%); 20 kinds of medicine belonged to Spleen Meridian of Foot-Taiyin (38.5%); 16 kinds of medicine belonged to Heart Meridian of Hand-Shaoyin (30.8%). High frequency medicine was mainly to be sweet, spicy and bitter. High frequency medicine was mainly to be medicine with the functions of clearing heat, tonifying (tinifying qi, blood, yang and yin), activating blood and expelling stasis, and expelling rheumatism. 127 pairs of high frequency medicine was in positive correlation, among which 36 pairs showed the correlation coefficient >0.9. High frequency cluster analysis could be mainly divided into 6 categories. Conclusion The medication laws in this study and Professor LI Ji-ren's treatment for RA emphasize consolidating basis, and are in accordance with the ideas of expelling wind and humidity, activating blood and expelling stasis and stopping pain, which can provide references for clinic.