Thousand-Gold Rhaponticum Decoction

One of the three formulas the method leaf sends for at the outset when the body is repleted — on an abscess just effusing in a strong patient, hurry to give Ohyangyeongyo-tang or Cheongeumnuro-tang, it says, and in the young and robust Oridaehwang-tang or Hwadok-dan to get one or two free movements of the bowel. All of these sit on the draining side of the chapter's central pair, opposite the 托裏 and 內托 formulas that supplement a depleted body so the pus is thrust outward. Which side a case belongs to is decided by the strength of the patient and the stage of the swelling, not by the swelling alone, and that is the useful thing the chapter has to teach. Rhubarb leads at 2 don with everything else level at 8 fun, so the structure is one purgative under a flat field of ten. Rhaponticum and forsythia are the drugs the tradition reaches for on a hot swelling; ephedra and cimicifuga push outward through the surface while the rhubarb pulls down, which is the 發表攻裏兼行 of the method leaf in one prescription; ampelopsis and bletilla are the pair used on a sore that has not yet opened. The name is the Cheongeumbang's, but the Bogam takes the leaf from the Hoechun. As with the rest of the draining group, 以通利爲度 is the dose instruction and not a claim of cure. A carbuncle of the back in a febrile patient is a surgical and antibiotic problem, and purging will not reach it. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.