Scorpion and Aconite Powder

**Contains aconite, arisaema and scorpion, all toxic. The patient is a child, the text gives no dose by weight anywhere, and this must not be prepared.** Aconite is the dominant drug at 2 don, twice everything else. See 生附四君子湯 for what 慢脾風 is and for what would actually have saved these children — fluid and electrolyte replacement, glucose and warming, none of which is in this powder. Two of the remaining drugs need naming separately. 白附子 is a distinct material from 附子 despite the name: the Korean tradition generally reads it as the root of *Aconitum coreanum* (關白附), modern Chinese practice as the *Typhonium* rhizome (禹白附), and the two are not interchangeable — but on either reading it is toxic raw and is being given to an infant. 南星, arisaema, is severely irritant raw; the text does specify 炮, roasted, which is the correct processing, and that is to its credit. 全蝎 is seven whole dried scorpions. Scorpion venom is a neurotoxin, drying does not abolish it, and seven bodies is not a measurable dose in a patient who may weigh six kilograms. The composition is the collapse picture read as cold and phlegm: warm the centre hard, and shift the rattling secretions. The rattle in that child is pooled saliva in a mouth with no gag reflex, which is a sign of how obtunded she is, not a blockage to be dissolved. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.