Licorice Decoction (Children, Pox Thirst)

Gamcho-tang

한글 감초탕 (소아) · Pinyin Gan Cao Tang

甘草湯

Neither of the two 甘草湯 already on the site matches this one. `gamcho-tang` is the Junggyeong formula of licorice alone, 4 don a dose three times a day, for shaoyin guest heat with a sore throat; `gamcho-tang-eumdok` is the Immun's seven-drug formula for yin toxin, with 升麻ㆍ當歸ㆍ桂枝ㆍ雄黃ㆍ川椒ㆍ鼈甲 beside the licorice, also known as 升麻鼈甲湯. This leaf is two drugs, licorice with trichosanthes root, and shares only the licorice with either, so it is a third distinct prescription of the name and takes the chapter tail. 治同上 points through the 烏梅湯 leaf to 紅花子湯.

Composition 構成

Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

8 g
Chief 君
Gwarugeun Gua Lou Gen
瓜蔞根 과루근 · Trichosanthes Root

8 g
Chief 君

Total 16 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

Treats the same as the formula above — thirst in the pox, and a pox that will not come out freely
Two drugs decocted to engender fluids

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Restless thirst during the pox
Fluids scorched with heat above

Biomedical correlates

Thirst from dehydration in a child with smallpox

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治同上. 甘草ㆍ瓜蔞根各二錢. 右剉, 水煎服之. 《入門》

Translation

It treats the same as above. Licorice and trichosanthes root, 2 don each. Cut them up, decoct in water and take it. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Two drugs at 2 don each. Trichosanthes root — 天花粉 in the chapter's other name for it — is the tradition's standard drug for engendering fluids and is used for thirst throughout the book; the section prose reaches for it again a few lines earlier, added to 參苓白朮散. Licorice is the other half by weight. The reading of the thirst is the same as on the 紅花子湯 leaf: 煩渴 is the symptom of the fluid already lost, and a cooling decoction does not replace it. This one is also the smallest volume of the three thirst leaves, which matters when the useful part of any of them is the water. **Contains licorice at 2 don, half the formula by weight. Glycyrrhizin has mineralocorticoid activity: taken repeatedly it retains sodium and wastes potassium, and the patient here is a child who in this part of the chapter is often already losing potassium in a diarrhoea. Hypokalaemia in an infant causes weakness, ileus and arrhythmia. The patient is an infant and the leaf gives no dose scaled to age or weight.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.