Secret Formula Clear the Spleen Pill

A pill version of the Cheongpi-eum line, and a milder one. 淸脾 does not mean cooling the Spleen so much as clearing out what is cluttering it: pinellia and green tangerine peel against phlegm and stagnant qi, tsaoko fruit and magnolia bark against damp, scutellaria for the heat, and white atractylodes at a nyang and a half holding the centre while the rest works. Zedoary and turmeric add a blood-moving edge the drink forms do not have. The indication is the chapter's most precise piece of observation. 三日一發 — a paroxysm every third day — and 十日一發 are periodicities, and the formula is offered for the long-spaced cases specifically. Quartan and tertian rhythms are the signature of malarial species, and the Bogam is sorting its patients by exactly the feature a modern clinician would use. What it does with that information is pharmacologically beside the point, but the observation itself is good medicine. Pinellia is toxic raw and must be properly processed. A fever with a fixed multi-day periodicity after exposure in a malarial region needs blood films or a rapid antigen test and modern antimalarial treatment. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.