Formulas · External Application 外用 · Jeonssi (錢氏)

Arisaema Powder for the Unclosed Skull

Cheonnamseong-san

한글 천남성산 · Pinyin Tian Nan Xing San

天南星散

The transcription writes 灸手頻熨, where 灸 must be read as 炙 — to warm the hand at a fire, not to apply moxa to it. The corpus prints the transcription's form for the 灸/炙 pair and the reading is recorded here instead. The red silk (緋帛) the paste is spread on is apparatus and is kept in the method rather than entered as an ingredient.

Composition 構成

Cheonnamseong Tian Nan Xing
天南星 천남성 · Arisaema

—
Chief 君

大天南星, one large corm, lightly roasted (微炮) and powdered · toxic raw, must be properly processed
Cho Cu
醋 초 · Vinegar

—
Envoy 使

醋, vinegar, to work the powder into a paste

Total 0 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 2 ingredients 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

Treats the same as above — the skull that will not close
A single lightly roasted arisaema corm powdered, mixed with vinegar and spread on red silk, laid over the fontanelle and pressed repeatedly with a warmed hand

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Skull sutures gaping and unclosed in an infant
Fontanelle still open past the age at which it should have shut

Biomedical correlates

Historically used for delayed closure of the fontanelle
Recorded for historical reference only

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治同上. 大天南星微炮爲末, 醋調, 塗緋帛上, 貼顖上, 灸手頻熨, 立效. 《錢氏》

Translation

Treats the same as above. One large arisaema corm, lightly roasted and powdered, worked up with vinegar, spread on red silk and stuck over the fontanelle; warm the hand and press it on repeatedly, and it answers at once. — Jeonssi 錢氏 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

One corm, vinegar, a square of red silk and a warm hand. As a piece of method it is careful — the paste is carried on cloth rather than smeared on the scalp, and the warmth is applied by hand rather than by an iron, which for something laid over an open fontanelle is the gentler of the two choices the chapter makes elsewhere. **Contains arisaema, which is severely irritant raw — it is loaded with calcium oxalate needles and blisters skin and mucosa on contact. The patient is an infant, the text gives no dose by weight here, and the paste is going onto the one place on the body where there is no bone between it and the brain's covering. This must not be prepared.** The text does specify 微炮, lightly roasted, which is in the right direction, but *lightly* is the weakest form of the processing that makes arisaema safe to handle. For what this child actually has, and for why nothing applied to the outside of the skull can reach it, see 三神散 in this same section: 解顱 is rickets, vitamin D deficiency, and the full statement is written there. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.