Clear Heat and Disperse Toxin Drink

The mildest of the three formulas the method leaf offers for an inward pattern. Its sentence runs: an inward pattern should be dredged and conducted, so use Naesohwangryeon-tang or Seonbanghwalmyeong-eum; in the lighter case, Cheongyeolsodok-eum. What makes it lighter is visible in the list — there is no rhubarb. The other two lead with 2 and 5 don of it respectively, and this one replaces the whole precipitating action with honeysuckle, coptis, forsythia and gardenia clearing heat, and raw rehmannia, red peony, cnidium and Korean angelica cooling and moving the blood. It is Samul-tang's blood pair set inside a cooling prescription. That also places it opposite the chapter's other arm. Where the 托裏 and 內托 formulas supplement a spent patient with ginseng and astragalus so the pus is pushed outward, this treats the patient who is not spent at all — the yang pattern, swollen, hot, painful and thirsty — and simply cools. The two readings of abscess run side by side through the whole chapter, and 陽證 is the word that assigns a case to this side of it. Of all the formulas in this group this is the one with the least to apologise for: it contains nothing toxic, nothing prohibited, and nothing violent. It also will not treat an abscess. Hot, painful, spreading redness with fever is cellulitis, and the modern answer is an antibiotic, with drainage if pus has collected. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.