Formulas · External Application 外用 · Jeongyo (精要)

Dried Mugwort Wash

Geonae-tang

한글 건애탕 · Pinyin Gan Ai Tang

乾艾湯

The leaf is headed 乾艾湯, dried mugwort, but the drug it names is 陳艾葉, aged mugwort leaf; both resolve to 艾葉. The transcription closes the leaf with a single interlinear bracket holding both the cross-reference and the source, ≪方見雜方○精要≫; the cross-reference is the base text's own note on 神異膏 and is printed in parentheses in its original position, with the source label 精要 taken out and set in 《》. 烟 is printed as the transcription has it, since the corpus prints that form; 癕 is printed as 癰 and 温 as 溫.

Composition 構成

Aeyeop Ai Ye
艾葉 애엽 · Mugwort Leaf

—
Chief 君

陳艾葉 — aged mugwort leaf, decocted strongly for the wash; no weight given
Baekgyohyang Bai Jiao Xiang
白膠香 백교향 · Sweetgum Resin

—
Deputy 臣

燒烟熏之 — burnt and the smoke directed at the wound; no weight given

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

An external wash, not a drink — a strong mugwort decoction used warm on the wound daily
Followed by smoking the wound over burning sweetgum resin and dressing it with a plaster
Warms a cold, stagnant wound that the qi and blood are not reaching

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

瘡口久不合 — the mouth of the sore long failing to close
肉白而膿血少 — pale flesh with scant pus and blood
氣血不潮于瘡, 冷滯 — qi and blood not flooding to the sore, which is cold and stagnant

Biomedical correlates

Chronic non-healing wound with poor perfusion
Indolent ulcer with pale, non-granulating base

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

癰疽瘡口久不合, 肉白而膿血少, 乃氣血不潮于瘡, 冷滯而然. 陳艾葉濃煎取湯, 逐日溫洗. 仍以白膠香燒烟熏之, 神異膏貼之<span class='sochu'>方見雜方</span>. 《精要》

Translation

Where the mouth of an abscess sore has long failed to close, the flesh is pale and there is little pus or blood, the qi and blood are not flooding to the sore and it is cold and stagnant. Decoct aged mugwort leaf strongly, take the liquid, and wash the wound warm with it day after day. Then burn sweetgum resin and smoke the wound with it, and paste on Sini-go (the formula is given in the Japbang chapter). — Jeongyo 精要 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The one wash in the group given for a cold wound rather than a hot one, and the leaf states its reasoning before it names a drug: a sore that has stayed open with pale flesh and scant discharge is one the qi and blood are not reaching — 氣血不潮于瘡 — so it is to be warmed rather than cooled. Mugwort, strongly decocted, is the warming agent, and the treatment is a daily warm wash rather than a single application. The sequence after the wash is worth noting as a piece of practice: smoke from burning 白膠香 is directed at the wound, and only then does the plaster go on. Smoke as an intermediate dressing step recurs through this chapter, and the drying and deodorising it achieved is presumably what kept it. The clinical picture is accurately drawn. A pale, dry, non-granulating wound that has been open for months is the chronic wound of poor perfusion, and warmth and moisture do help it. What such a wound needs now is the reason the blood is not arriving — arterial disease, diabetes, pressure, venous stasis — investigated and treated, since no amount of warm washing will close a wound whose supply is cut off. Smoke should not be put into an open wound. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.