Formulas · Purge Downward 瀉下 · Tangssi (湯氏)

Seven Sages Pill for Milk and Food Accumulation

Chilseong-hwan

한글 칠성환 (소아) · Pinyin Qi Sheng Wan

七聖丸

A homonym, not the registered 七聖丸. The corpus already holds a 七聖丸 (chilseong-hwan), the Jeongjeon formula of 郁李仁ㆍ羌活ㆍ大黃ㆍ檳榔ㆍ桂心ㆍ木香ㆍ川芎 given for pain of the rectum, which shares not one drug with this leaf and has a different source and a different indication; this one therefore takes the chapter tail. 卧 is left as the transcription prints it, per the house rule on that glyph. The transcription writes 川練子; the corpus prints 練 in nineteen places against six for 楝, so the majority form is kept. The abbreviations 蓬ㆍ稜 and 陳ㆍ練 in the method stand for 蓬朮ㆍ三稜 and 陳皮ㆍ川練子 and are printed as written. No weight is given for any drug — 各等分, equal parts.

Composition 構成

Samneung San Leng
三稜 삼릉 · Sparganium

—
Chief 君

equal parts (等分), vinegar-soaked and fried red with the zedoary
Bongchul E Zhu
莪朮 봉출 · Zedoary

—
Chief 君

蓬朮, zedoary, equal parts (等分), fried red with the sparganium
Wonhwa Yuan Hua
芫花 원화 · Genkwa (toxic)

—
Chief 君

equal parts (等分), steeped in vinegar overnight then fried gradually dry, a violent purgative, toxic
Cheollyeonja Chuan Lian Zi
川楝子 천련자 · Toosendan Fruit

—
Deputy 臣

川練子, chinaberry fruit, equal parts (等分), fried with the tangerine peel until lightly scorched
Cheongpi Qing Pi
靑皮 청피 · Green Tangerine Peel

—
Deputy 臣

equal parts (等分)
Jinpi Chen Pi
陳皮 진피 · Aged Tangerine Peel

—
Deputy 臣

equal parts (等分), fried with the chinaberry until lightly scorched
Haengin Xing Ren
杏仁 행인 · Apricot Kernel

—
Assistant 佐

杏仁泥, apricot kernel ground to a paste, equal parts (等分), stirred in after the rest is powdered

Total 0 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 7 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 milk accumulation and food accumulation in a child
Taken continuously, two pills at bedtime, so that the day's food is digested overnight
Claimed to prevent malnutrition disease altogether and to turn a sallow, wasted child into a thriving one

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

乳食積 — milk and food accumulation
黃瘦 — a sallow, wasted child

Biomedical correlates

Historically used for abdominal distension and failure to thrive in a child

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治乳食積. 三稜ㆍ蓬朮ㆍ川練子ㆍ靑皮ㆍ陳皮ㆍ芫花ㆍ杏仁泥各等分. 右先用醋浸芫花一宿, 炒漸乾, 次入蓬ㆍ稜同炒赤色, 又入陳ㆍ練再炒令微焦, 取出爲末, 入杏仁泥和勻, 醋糊和丸黍米大. 一歲兒常服二丸, 臨卧溫湯送下, 使日間所食之物一夜而化, 永無疳疾, 能使黃瘦子頓作化生兒. 《湯氏》

Translation

Treats milk and food accumulation. Sparganium, zedoary, chinaberry fruit, green tangerine peel, tangerine peel, genkwa flower and apricot-kernel paste, equal parts. First steep the genkwa in vinegar overnight and fry it gradually dry; next put in the zedoary and sparganium and fry them together to a red colour; then put in the tangerine peel and chinaberry and fry again until lightly scorched; take it out and powder it, stir in the apricot-kernel paste until even, and bind with vinegar paste into pills the size of a millet grain. A one-year-old takes two pills regularly, sent down with warm water at bedtime, so that what was eaten in the day is digested in a single night; then there will never be malnutrition disease, and it can turn a sallow, wasted child into a thriving one at once. — Tangssi 湯氏 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Seven drugs in equal parts with an unusually careful sequence of frying: the genkwa goes in first, steeped in vinegar overnight and dried off in the pan, then the zedoary and sparganium are fried red with it, then the tangerine peels and the chinaberry until lightly scorched, and the apricot-kernel paste is folded in cold at the end. The staged roasting is the formula's craft, and in this tradition it is what is supposed to blunt the genkwa. For what 積癖 actually is and why a persistent abdominal mass in a child is an imaging question today, see 進食丸 (jinsik-hwan), where the differential for this batch is set out in full. **Contains genkwa flower (芫花), one of the violent purgatives of the classical pharmacopoeia, in a pill a one-year-old is to take every night without interruption. The chapter gives no dose by weight anywhere — 各等分, equal parts — and this must not be prepared.** Genkwa is in the same class as croton, euphorbia and kansui: it empties the bowel by irritation, and the daily fluid loss it causes is the hazard in a small child, not the single purge. The vinegar soak and the frying are a real attempt at detoxification but they do not make it a safe drug, and nothing about the method lets anyone know how much daphnetoxin is in two millet-sized pills. 川練子 is chinaberry fruit, also toxic in quantity. The claim at the end of the leaf — that the child will never get 疳 and will be made thriving at once — is the opposite of what a nightly purgative does to a malnourished child: 疳 is childhood malnutrition, and what reverses it is calories and protein. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.