White Atractylodes Powder (Women's chapter)

Baekchul-san

한글 백출산 · Pinyin Bai Zhu San

白朮散

Cut and made into one packet with 5 slices of ginger, decocted in water and taken. **Note on modern practice: vomiting for days with nothing staying down is hyperemesis gravidarum, which carries real risk of dehydration and electrolyte disturbance and requires urgent obstetric care, often including intravenous fluids. This entry is recorded as classical text.**

Composition 構成

Baekchul Bai Zhu
白朮 백출 · White Atractylodes

20 g
Chief 君
Insam Ren Shen
人蔘 인삼 · Ginseng

10 g
Deputy 臣
Jeonghyang Ding Xiang
丁香 정향 · Clove

4.8 g
Assistant 佐
Saenggang Sheng Jiang
生薑 생강 · Fresh Ginger

10 g
Envoy 使 5 slices
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

2 g
Envoy 使

Total 46.8 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts.

Received this formula from your practitioner? Amounts shown here are classical reference values — granule and prepared products differ. Always follow your prescribed dosage and directions.

Actions 效能

Restores a stomach that has refused everything for ten days
Warms and steadies with clove where nothing will stay down

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Malign obstruction with vomiting of clear water for ten days and more (吐淸水十餘日)
Neither gruel nor medicine going in (粥藥不入)
The severe end of pregnancy sickness

Biomedical correlates

Hyperemesis gravidarum presentations — historical management
Intractable vomiting in pregnancy
Inability to tolerate oral intake

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治惡阻, 吐淸水十餘日, 粥藥不入. 白朮五錢, 人參二錢半, 丁香一錢二分, 甘草五分. 右剉, 作一貼, 入薑五片, 水煎服. 《良方》

Translation

Treats malign obstruction, with vomiting of clear water for ten days and more, and neither gruel nor medicine going in. White atractylodes 5 don; ginseng 2.5 don; clove 1 don 2 fun; licorice 5 fun. Cut the above, make one packet, add 5 slices of ginger, decoct in water and take. — Yangbang 良方 (Donguibogam · Buin)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Four herbs for the worst case on the shelf — ten days of vomiting clear water, with neither food nor medicine staying down. The construction is deliberately spare: atractylodes and ginseng to rebuild a stomach with nothing in it, and clove, the tradition's most reliable anti-emetic warmth, at a small dose. When a patient cannot keep anything down, a simple formula has a better chance than an elaborate one — which is reasoning any clinician would recognize. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.