Formulas · External Application 外用 · Hagan (河間)

Sever Malaria Sage-Like Pill

Danhagyeoseong-hwan

한글 단학여성환 · Pinyin Duan Nue Ru Sheng Wan

斷瘧如聖丸

芡實 appears only as the size of the pill, not as an ingredient. 裹 is printed in its standard form; the transcription writes the variant.

Composition 構成

Bisang Pi Shuang
砒礵 비상 · Arsenic Trioxide

8 g
Chief 君

信砒, arsenolite — arsenic
Jiju Zhi Zhu
蜘蛛 지주 · Spider

—
Deputy 臣

大蜘蛛三箇, three large spiders
Heukdu Hei Dou
黑豆 흑두 · Black Soybean

—
Assistant 佐

雄黑豆四十九粒, forty-nine plump black soybeans

Total 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

Severs the malaria by plugging the ear on the morning of the paroxysm
Offers the pill beneath the Northern Dipper the night before

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Every kind of malaria treated by the warding method (禳法)
Malaria to be turned away rather than treated
Recurrent paroxysms resistant to decoctions

Biomedical correlates

Malaria — historical ritual therapy
Recurrent febrile paroxysms

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

信砒二錢, 大蜘蛛三箇, 雄黑豆四十九粒. 右爲末, 滴水和丸如芡實大. 如來日發, 今夜北斗下先獻過. 次早以綿裹一丸, 於男左女右耳內塞之, 立愈如神. 一丸可救二人. 《河間》

Translation

Arsenolite, 2 don; three large spiders; forty-nine plump black soybeans. Powder them and make pills with dripped water, the size of a euryale seed. If the paroxysm is due the next day, offer them tonight beneath the Northern Dipper first. Early the next morning wrap one pill in silk floss and plug it into the ear — the left for a man, the right for a woman — and the cure is immediate, like a miracle. One pill can save two people. — Hagan 河間 (Donguibogam · Haehak)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The second of the 禳法 prescriptions, and the plainer of the two: arsenic, three spiders and forty-nine black soybeans, pilled with dripped water, offered overnight under the Dipper and worn in the ear the next morning. 一丸可救二人, one pill can save two people, because the pill is divided between two ears and not swallowed by anyone. That last detail is the only thing standing between this prescription and a poisoning, and it is worth saying that the compiler knew it. 截瘧法 warns a few leaves earlier that 世有砒丹等截藥, 大毒, 不可輕用 — the arsenic elixirs among the malaria-cutting drugs are violently toxic and not to be used lightly. Here the arsenic is kept outside the body entirely, which is as close to caution as the warding method comes. **Contains arsenolite, which is arsenic, and raw spider. This whole preparation is one we would not reproduce under any circumstances; arsenic is toxic by any route, including through broken skin. Malaria requires modern antimalarial treatment.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.