Method for Pit Viper Wine

Baekhwasaju-beop

한글 백화사주법 · Pinyin Bai Hua She Jiu Fa

白花蛇酒法

幷 is printed as the transcription has it, the corpus not normalising 並/幷. 酒麴 is recorded under guk, the herb list heading the wine starter 麴. The glutinous rice is a volume measure, 二斗, and the snake a count, so neither carries a gram figure. The jar, the silk bag and the sealing paper are apparatus and are kept in the source text only. The leaf head is 白花蛇酒法 and the id takes the hyphen before 法, following the corpus pattern for 醋墨法 and 透鐵關法.

Composition 構成

Baekhwasa Bai Hua She
白花蛇 백화사 · Pit Viper (CITES-listed)

—
Chief 君

白花蛇一條 — one pit viper, bagged in silk and set over the leaven; a CITES-listed material
Nami Nuo Mi
糯米 나미 · Glutinous Rice

—
Chief 君

糯米二斗 — two mal of glutinous rice, steamed
Guk Qu
麴 국 · Brewing Leaven (wine starter)

—
Deputy 臣

酒麴 — wine leaven, laid in the bottom of the jar

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 3 ingredients measured by count or used as a vehicle, shown as —.

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

Treats the great wind leprous sore
A brewing method rather than a prescription — a whole snake fermented into a wine
The wine is drunk, the snake is dried and powdered and taken in it, and the lees are made into cakes and eaten
The same method serves for the black-striped snake

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

大風癩瘡 — the great wind leprous sore

Biomedical correlates

Hansen's disease (leprosy) — historical

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治大風癩瘡. 白花蛇一條. 先蒸糯米二斗, 缸底先安酒麴, 次將蛇以絹袋盛之, 頓於麴上, 然後以糯飯和勻, 頓於蛇上, 以紙封缸口, 候三七日開取酒. 將蛇去皮骨, 焙乾爲末, 每溫酒一盞調蛇末一匙服之. 仍以酒脚幷糟做餠食之. ○烏蛇釀酒法亦同上. 《本草》

Translation

Treats the great wind leprous sore. One pit viper. First steam two mal of glutinous rice. Lay the wine leaven in the bottom of the jar, then put the snake into a silk bag and set it on top of the leaven; after that mix the glutinous rice evenly and heap it over the snake, seal the mouth of the jar with paper, and wait three times seven days before opening it and drawing off the wine. Take the snake, strip off the skin and bones, dry it over a fire and powder it, and for each dose stir a spoonful of the snake powder into a cup of warm wine and take it. Then make the lees and dregs into cakes and eat them. ○ The method for brewing the wine of the black-striped snake is likewise the same as above. — Boncho 本草 (Donguibogam · Jechang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Not a prescription but a brewing method, and the most complete use of a single drug in the chapter. Leaven in the bottom of the jar, the snake in a silk bag on top of it, two mal of steamed glutinous rice heaped over, the mouth sealed with paper and left twenty-one days. Then three things are taken: the wine, the snake itself dried and powdered and stirred into that wine a spoonful at a time, and the lees and dregs made into cakes and eaten. Nothing is thrown away. Wine extraction of snake for 大風 runs through the whole section — Hwangi-san and Yupung-dan both steep their snakes, Chwiseon-san has the patient eat snake boiled in weak wine to help the medicine along, and this leaf is that practice at full length. The closing line extends it to the black-striped snake. **Contains pit viper, a CITES-listed material, and the rest is home fermentation of a raw animal carcass. This must not be prepared.** A snake fermented for three weeks and then eaten is a route for salmonella and for the parasites snakes carry, and the patient drinking it has open sores. Nothing in it acts on Mycobacterium leprae. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.