Bitter Gourd Powder

Four substances, two of them ash and one of them house dust, bound with oil and spread on silk rather than dusted on — which at least means the dressing lifts off without tearing the surface. The gourd is the drug; the snake slough and hornet's nest are the sort of ingredient this chapter reaches for when a sore spreads. 浸淫瘡 at 2.13 is described exactly: 初生甚小, 先痒後痛, 汁出浸淫, small at first, itching before it hurts, then fluid that soaks and creeps until the whole body is involved. That is impetigo, or an infected weeping eczema, and in a child it is usually staphylococcal. The chapter's prognostic note just above — spreading from the mouth outward is treatable, spreading from the limbs inward to the mouth is not — is a crude observation of how far the infection has gone. **The bottle gourd contains cucurbitacins and is toxic; this is prescribed for a child and should not be prepared. 梁上塵, dust from a roof beam, must not be put on broken skin** — it is an uncontrolled source of bacterial and fungal spores including tetanus, and on an impetiginous surface in a child it could do real harm. An antibiotic ointment settles this condition in days. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.