Formulas · Warm the Interior 溫裏 · Taepyeong Hyeminhwajebang (太平惠民和劑局方)

Pinellia and Sulphur Pill

Banryu-hwan

한글 반류환 · Pinyin Ban Liu Wan

半硫丸

Sulphur is toxic; killing it with a willow-wood mallet is the traditional detoxifying preparation. The Bogam gives the same drug in Jojin-dan earlier in this chapter for the opposite complaint.

Composition 構成

Banha Ban Xia
半夏 반하 · Pinellia

—
Chief 君

ginger prepared and powdered; equal parts
Yuhwang Liu Huang
硫黃 유황 · Sulphur

—
Chief 君

ground very fine and killed with a willow-wood mallet; equal parts · toxic
Jeungbyeong Zheng Bing
蒸餠 증병 · Steamed Leavened Bread

—
Envoy 使

steamed cake steeped in ginger juice

Total 0 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 phlegm bound in the old with the stool dry and inhibited

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Cold phlegm binding with constipation in the aged
Yang vacuity constipation

Biomedical correlates

Constipation in the elderly
Slow-transit constipation

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治老人痰結, 大便秘澁. 半夏(薑製, 爲末)ㆍ硫黃(硏極細, 以柳木槌殺過) 右等分, 薑汁浸蒸餠和丸梧子大, 溫酒或薑湯下五七十丸. 《局方》

Translation

Treats phlegm bound in the old with the stool dry and inhibited. Ginger-prepared pinellia, powdered, and sulphur, ground very fine and killed with a willow-wood mallet, in equal parts. Make pills with steamed cake steeped in ginger juice, the size of a paulownia seed, and take fifty to seventy in warm wine or a ginger decoction. — Gukbang 局方 (Donguibogam · Daebyeon)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Sulphur for constipation, where the chapter used it two sections earlier for a collapsing diarrhoea — which is not inconsistency but the drug's reputation as a warmer of the lower origin, applied to whichever failure of that origin presents. In the aged with slow cold bowels it is the standard pre-modern prescription, and elemental sulphur taken orally is in fact converted in the gut to hydrogen sulphide and sulphide salts, which are osmotic and irritant. It would work, and it is toxic in quantity. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.