Preserve Life Powder

鵝口瘡, goose-mouth sore, is named in 1.17 as another name for 噤口風, and the chapter describes it exactly: white scurf filling a newborn's mouth, on the lips and nose too, so that the child cannot suck. That is oral candidiasis, and it is common, treatable and today unremarkable — nystatin suspension or oral fluconazole clears it. What makes it dangerous in a newborn is not the fungus but the refusal to feed: a baby that will not suck dehydrates within a day or two, and that is what the section is reaching for when it puts this leaf among the navel formulas. The powder itself is alum and mirabilite, astringent and salty, with cinnabar for colour and for the red of the vermilion that this tradition read as quieting the heart. It is painted on mucosa, in the mouth, in a baby that will swallow all of it. **Contains cinnabar, which is mercuric sulfide. The patient is a newborn: the blood–brain barrier is immature, the kidneys clear poorly, and total blood volume is about 250 ml, so a quantity that would merely sicken an adult is a neurological dose here. There is no safe intake of mercury at any age, the developing nervous system is the organ at risk, and the injury does not reverse. The text gives no dose by weight anywhere. This must not be prepared or given.** **The vehicle is goose dung ground up in water and painted inside a newborn's mouth. Faecal material introduced into the mouth of a baby who is already unable to feed is a route for enteric and clostridial infection, not a medicine.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.