Formulas · External Application 外用 · Jikji (直指)

Water Removing Paste

Geosu-go

한글 거수고 · Pinyin Qu Shui Gao

去水膏

臖 is the transcription's character for the hot, swollen, risen pain of a sore, and is kept as printed. 驢馬汗及尿糞 — donkey and horse sweat, urine and dung — are named as the contaminants the dressing is for, not as ingredients in it. 甘草生末 is the raw rather than honey-roasted licorice, powdered. The transcription prints 癕 and 為; 癰 and 爲 are printed above.

Composition 構成

Sadang Sha Tang
砂糖 사당 · Granulated Sugar

30 g
Chief 君

7 don 5 fun
Nami Nuo Mi
糯米 나미 · Glutinous Rice

30 g
Deputy 臣

糯米粉, glutinous rice flour, 7 don 5 fun
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

10 g
Assistant 佐

生末, raw and powdered; 2 don 5 fun

Total 70 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

A sugar and rice-flour paste spread on silk and laid over an opened sore that foul water has got into
Said to draw the tainted fluid back out of itself
Given for every kind of tainted water, including donkey and horse sweat, urine and dung

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

癰疽破穴後誤入諸毒水 — foul water got into an abscess after it opened
臖痛 — the hot swollen pain that follows

Biomedical correlates

Wound contamination
Secondarily infected open wound
Contaminated traumatic wound

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

癰疽破穴後, 誤入諸毒水, 以致臖痛. 砂糖ㆍ糯米粉各七錢半, 甘草(生末) 二錢半. 右入熟水少許, 爲膏, 攤絹上貼之, 毒水自出. 驢馬汗及尿糞一切毒水, 皆治之. 《直指》

Translation

Where foul water has got by mistake into an abscess after it has opened, bringing on hot swollen pain. Granulated sugar and glutinous rice flour, 7 don 5 fun each; raw powdered licorice, 2 don 5 fun. Work these up with a little boiled water into a paste, spread it on silk and stick it on; the tainted water comes out of itself. It treats every kind of tainted water, donkey and horse sweat, urine and dung included. — Jikji 直指 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

A dressing, and three inert ingredients: sugar, glutinous rice flour and raw licorice powder, worked into a paste with a little boiled water and spread on silk. Nothing in it is a caustic or a poison, which makes it one of the few things in this part of the chapter that could be laid on an open wound without doing harm. The indication is a contaminated wound. An abscess that has been opened and then had dirty water, sweat, urine or dung get into it is the chapter's own description of secondary infection, and the dressing is meant to pull the contamination back out — 毒水自出, the tainted water coming out of itself. Sugar on an open wound is less strange than it looks. Sugar and honey dressings are used in wound care today for exactly the reason implied here: they are strongly hypertonic, they pull fluid out of the tissue into the dressing, and their low water activity suppresses bacterial growth. Licorice is anti-inflammatory and soothing, and rice flour is the body of the paste. So the mechanism claimed is roughly the mechanism that operates. **Dung, urine or stable water in an open wound is a tetanus and clostridial risk and needs medical assessment, wound cleaning and tetanus cover — not a plaster.** A dressing is the last step of treating a dirty wound, never the first. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.