1) It is true that YTS did often use ginger juice (姜汁) prepared herbs, however in these case studies we see them usually written with parenthesis “(“ such as in 南星（姜汁炒） dan xing (dry-fried with ginger juice). YTS’s cases are written with something like this for huang lian – Coptidis Rhizoma (Sichuanense) (dry-fried ginger juice) “川连（姜汁炒一两）”

2) In my experience, if not written using parenthesis one will see something like: Ginger Coptis (姜黃連 jiang huang lian). This is huang lian dry-fried with ginger juice.

3) Finally, it is clear from his cases that YTS would use Ginger Juice (姜汁 jiang zhi) as a single medicinal. For example he would add it to a formula such as Minor Pinellia Decoction (xiâo bàn xià täng) which already contains Zingiberis Rhizoma recens (shëng jiäng) or just include it in a list of medicinals (e.g. 姜汁（四分）).
Therefore, I do agree that a processed huang lian make sense from a theoretical perspective in this case, but I also can see that just interpreting this as a single medicinal, Ginger Juice (姜汁 jiang zhi,) also makes sense. I can see both sides (linguistically and theoretically) hence I think we must search YTS’s other case records for further illumination.

However, I would love to hear your thinking on this matter. This is precisely why I like to include the Chinese because we can learn how other people read things and expand our horizons.

Maybe a stupid question, but how do we know this is ginger juice and fried huang liang, and not ginger juice fried huang lian? I actually tend to think it’s the latter, but I may be wrong.

Greg