Abstract: Objective To explore the characteristics and rules of drugs prescribed by prestigious Chinese physician Wang Boyue in the treatment of pediatric diseases. Methods The prescriptions included in the "Wang Boyue Medical Complete Collection" were manually retrieved, including those with complete medication information in the medical records. After extracting the prescription information and by referring to the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan textbook "Chinese Materia Medica" and "The Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China (2015 edition), data standardization was performed, and the data was entered into Microsoft Excel software after being checked by two people to establish the "Wang Boyue Pediatric Drug Database". The frequency analysis method was used to count the "four qi", "five flavors", "functioning meridians" and classification of drugs. SPSS Statistic 25.0 software was used to make systematic clustering analysis. SPSS Modeler 14.1 Apriori module was used for association rules and complex network analysis.Results A total of 247 prescriptions were included, with a total of 235 drugs. The frequency of the use of Chinese drugs was 2 519 times, and there were 33 drugs being used more than 20 times each, accounting for 55%. The frequently used drugs were those relieving fever and tonifying qi; the drugs were mainly cold in nature (42.4%), and 66% functioned through lung meridian, 48% through stomach and 46% spleen, which accounted for the most part of drugs. The drugs were mainly sweet in flavor (60.5%). Association rules and clustering analysis results showed that Prof. Wang Boyue was good at treating children's pulmonary diseases, and preferred to use the classic prescriptions in the Treatise on Febrile Diseases to treat children's diseases. His commonly used prescriptions included San'ao tablet, Maxing Shigan decoction, Jiegeng Gancao decoction, and Yinqiao powder with addition and subtraction. In the course of treatment, he paid special attention to regulating the spleen and stomach; by regulating the rise and fall of the spleen and stomach qi, regulating dampness and harmonizing stomach, relieving dyspepsia and strengthening spleen and assisting digestion, he comprehensively regulated the spleen and stomach in children. Conclusion Prof. Wang Boyue does a good job in using prescriptions for typhoid fever in the treatment of pediatric diseases, pays attention to the conditioning of children's spleen and stomach, and prefers to use "sweet" drugs, heat-clearing drugs and tonifying drugs, which mainly function through the meridians of lung, spleen and stomach.

Key words:

Prescription characteristics, Pediatrics, Wang Boyue, Data mining, Systematic clustering