寶鑑Bogam

Formulas · Calm the Spirit 安神 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Ward Off Evil Elixir

Byeoksa-dan

한글 벽사단  ·  Pinyin Bi Xie Dan

辟邪丹

The Bogam carries a second formula of this name, the Hagan 辟邪丹 of arsenic, red lead and cinnabar for miasmic and demon malaria in the Malaria chapter, registered on this site as Byeoksa-dan; the two share a name and nothing else, and this entry is suffixed for the Sasu chapter. 鬼箭羽 is registered under 衛矛, the Decoctions chapter noting of it 又名鬼箭羽. 赤茯神 is entered under 茯神 with the colour named in the prep. The transcription prints 卧 and 為; 卧 is kept as transcribed and 為 is given as 爲.

Composition 構成

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 1 ingredient 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

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

  • Strange illness from a violent assault of evil possession (衝惡邪祟怪疾)
  • Harm done by the nine-tailed fox spirit of the mountain valleys (山谷間九尾狐精爲患)

Biomedical correlates

  • Acute confusional and dissociative states — historical
  • Night-time agitation and terror

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治衝惡邪祟怪疾, 及山谷間九尾狐精爲患. 人參ㆍ赤茯神ㆍ遠志ㆍ鬼箭羽ㆍ石菖蒲ㆍ白朮ㆍ蒼朮ㆍ當歸 各一兩, 桃奴 五錢, 雄黃ㆍ朱砂 各三錢, 牛黃ㆍ麝香 各一錢. 右爲末, 酒糊和丸龍眼大, 金箔爲衣. 每一丸, 臨卧以木香湯化下, 諸邪不敢近體. 更以絳囊盛五七丸, 懸床帳中尤妙. 《入門》

Translation

Treats strange illness from a violent assault of evil possession, and harm done by the nine-tailed fox spirit of the mountain valleys. Ginseng, red poria with hostwood, polygala, winged euonymus twig, acorus, white atractylodes, atractylodes lancea and Korean angelica, 1 nyang each; withered peach, 5 don; realgar and cinnabar, 3 don each; cattle gallstone and musk, 1 don each. Powder the above, bind with wine paste into pills the size of a longan, and coat them with gold leaf. Take one pill at bedtime, dissolved in a saussurea decoction, and no evil will dare come near the body. Better still, put five or seven pills in a crimson bag and hang it inside the bed-curtain. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Sasu)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The first half of this pill is not a poison at all. Ginseng, poria with hostwood, polygala and acorus are Jeongji-hwan 定志丸, the standard spirit-settling quartet, and the two atractylodes and Korean angelica put behind them at the same nyang make the base of the formula a tonic. Only then come the withered peach at five don and the minerals at three and one don — realgar, cinnabar, cattle gallstone, musk — with gold leaf laid on the outside. By weight the tonic is eight parts of the formula and the minerals one. The indication is the one place in this chapter where a particular spirit is named: the nine-tailed fox of the mountain valleys. Two ways of using the pill follow, and both are aimed at the night. One pill is dissolved in a saussurea decoction at bedtime, and five or seven more go into a crimson bag hung inside the bed-curtain, where the chapter's amulets usually hang. Read against the rest of the chapter, the swallowed part of this one is unusual. A spirit-settling tonic given at bedtime to someone who sees and hears what is not there can be read, carefully, as a sedative for night-time agitation; the leaf's own frame is possession, and the fox spirit in the indication is a reminder not to push the reading further than that. **Contains cinnabar, which is mercuric sulfide, and realgar, which is an arsenic sulfide, together with musk from a protected species. This must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.

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