Formulas · Invigorate Blood 活血祛瘀 · Yangbang (良方)

Hasten the Birth Elixir

Choesaeng-dan

한글 최생단  ·  Pinyin Cui Sheng Dan

催生丹

The base is the brain of a rabbit taken in the twelfth month: the marrow is taken, the skin and membrane discarded, and it is ground to a paste — this is not listed as a medicinal here. The powders are mixed evenly into it and formed into pills the size of euryale seeds, dried in the shade and wrapped in oiled paper; one pill is ground down in warm water and taken, and the birth follows. The source adds that the woman grips the medicine — a man's birth in the left hand, a woman's in the right — and that this is the proof; and that compounding it on the twelfth-month day is best. **Note on modern practice: musk is a protected animal product and contemporary preparations substitute synthetic musk (muscone). Obstructed labor and malpresentation are managed today by external version or cesarean birth; recorded as classical text.**

Composition 構成

Total 15 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts.

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

  • Hard birth
  • and crosswise or reversed birth (産難及橫産逆産)
  • Obstructed labor
  • Malpresentation

Biomedical correlates

  • Obstructed labor and malpresentation — historical management
  • Obstetric emergency care of the era

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治産難及橫産逆産. 臘月兎腦 一箇(取髓去皮膜, 硏如泥), 乳香(細末) 二錢半, 丁香(細末) 一錢, 麝香 二分半. 右拌勻和丸, 雞頭實大, 陰乾, 油紙裹. 每取一丸, 溫水磨化服, 卽産. 隨男左女右手握藥出, 是驗. 須臘日合妙. 《良方》

Translation

Treats a hard birth, and crosswise or reversed birth. The brain of a twelfth-month rabbit, one — the marrow taken, the skin and membrane removed, ground to a paste; finely powdered frankincense 2 don 5 fun; finely powdered clove 1 don; musk 2 fun 5 ri. Mix the above evenly and form into pills the size of euryale seeds; dry in the shade and wrap in oiled paper. Take one pill, ground down in warm water — and the birth follows. She grips the medicine as it comes, in the left hand for a boy and the right for a girl; this is the proof. Compounding it on a twelfth-month day is best. — Yangbang 良方 (Donguibogam · Buin)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Three aromatics on a base no modern pharmacy would recognize, and the folk elements are worth preserving rather than trimming: the rabbit must be a twelfth-month one, the pills are best compounded on a particular day, and the labouring woman holds the medicine in one hand or the other according to the child's sex. What sits underneath all that is a real pharmacological idea — frankincense, clove, and musk are the tradition's three most penetrating aromatics, chosen to open and move downward when nothing is moving. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.

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