1. Is it good to cough? Coughing is a physiological reflex, through which the body can remove inhaled harmful substances and abnormal secretions that accumulate in the respiratory tract. Otherwise, if phlegm is blocked in the trachea, the lungs will become a “spittoon”, huh? However, violent coughing is harmful to the body and can cause bleeding around the eyes and face, a sudden increase in chest pressure, cardiac arrhythmia, dizziness, and rupture of the rectus abdominis muscle. 2. What does Chinese medicine know about coughing? Chinese medicine believes that coughing is due to an external evil or a malfunction of the internal organs’ intrinsic qi, which eventually leads to a malfunction of the lung qi declaring and descending, and the lung qi reverting upward, resulting in a cough. 3. What are the common causes of chronic cough? Common causes of chronic long-term cough include post-infectious cough, upper airway cough syndrome, cough variant asthma, and pharyngeal cough. In addition, mycoplasma infections can also cause chronic cough. 4. How does it cause a cough to develop? Cough occurs due to both internal and external factors: on the one hand, children’s respiratory immunity is temporarily low (called “lung deficiency” in Chinese medicine), and in many cases, children have abnormal spleen and stomach functions, such as deficiency of spleen and stomach qi or stagnation, especially constipation, etc. Some children are allergic and are more prone to coughing and each cough lasts longer than the average child. On the other hand, there are external triggers, the most common of which are external wind and cold and improper diet (eating cold drinks, barbecues, etc., or eating meat and less vegetables and fruits). The classic work of Chinese medicine, the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, says that “cold forms and cold drinks hurt the lungs”, which is the reasoning behind this. 5. Key points of cough treatment The treatment of cough is focused on the elimination of phlegm (phlegm does not stimulate coughing and is a good medium for bacteria, which evolves into a vicious circle); local nebulization is the ideal treatment; the frequency of coughing increases in the first few days but the depth of coughing decreases, which is realized as a less labored cough.