Formulas · Purge Downward 瀉下 · Dongwon (東垣)

Melon Stalk Powder

Gwache-san

한글 과체산 · Pinyin Gua Di San

瓜蔕散

Composition 構成

Gwache Gua Di
瓜蔕 과체 · Melon Pedicel (toxic)

4 g
Chief 君

stir-fried (炒); equal parts · toxic
Jeoksodu Chi Xiao Dou
赤小豆 적소두 · Adzuki Bean

4 g
Deputy 臣

Total 8 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

Ejects stubborn phlegm or food accumulation lodged in the chest

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Stubborn phlegm or food accumulation in the chest
with clouding
dizziness
oppression and disorder

Biomedical correlates

Gastric retention
Acute poisoning requiring gastric emptying

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治頑痰, 或食積在胸中, 爲昏眩悶亂. 瓜蔕(炒)ㆍ赤小豆各等分. 右爲末, 每二錢, 溫漿水調下, 取吐爲度. 《東垣》一方, 先取豉一合, 溫水七合煮取汁, 和藥末一錢頓服. 不吐再服, 快吐乃止. 《仲景》一方, 每服一錢, 藥下便臥, 欲吐且忍之. 良久不吐, 取二錢, 溫水二合和服, 以手指探喉中, 便吐. 《活人》

Translation

Treats stubborn phlegm, or food accumulation lodged in the chest, causing clouding, dizziness, oppression and disorder. Melon stalk (stir-fried) and adzuki bean in equal parts. Powder them and take 2 don at a dose stirred into warm fermented millet water, taking vomiting as the measure. Another formula: first take 1 hop of fermented soybean, boil it in 7 hop of warm water and take the liquor, mix in 1 don of the powder and take at a draught; if there is no vomiting take again, and stop when the vomiting comes freely. Another formula: take 1 don at a dose; after the medicine goes down lie flat, and when the urge to vomit comes, hold it back. If after a good while there is no vomiting, take 2 don mixed in 2 hop of warm water and probe the throat with a finger, and vomiting comes. — Dongwon 東垣 (Donguibogam · To)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The chapter's principal emetic and the one the Cold Damage and Internal Damage chapters both send their readers here for. Two medicinals only, and the adzuki bean is there to blunt the melon stalk rather than to add action. 欲吐且忍之 — when the urge comes, hold it back — is the instruction worth keeping. Suppressing the first retch lets the dose act longer and brings up more; probing the throat is the fallback when it does not come. **Melon stalk is toxic and can cause severe vomiting, dehydration and cardiac disturbance. Inducing vomiting is no longer recommended in poisoning and is dangerous where consciousness is impaired or a corrosive has been swallowed. This must not be prepared or taken.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.