Cinnamon Twig and Scutellaria Decoction

This is a second-line formula and the leaf says so plainly: it is for the patient who has already taken Gyejijakyak-tang and whose cold and heat have become worse rather than better. The inference drawn from that failure is that the soyang is involved as well, making it a three-yang combination disease, and with that the verb changes — no longer draining but harmonizing (和). Hence bupleurum at 2 don at the head of the formula, where the preceding prescription had none at all, with ginseng and pinellia behind it and the gypsum and anemarrhena pulled back to 1 don 5 fun. The odd shared weight of 1 don 2 fun across four drugs is Bomyeongjip's way of writing a middle dose, neither the full don of the surface drug nor the larger weight of the chief. The pair of leaves together is a worked example of how the chapter reads a treatment failure as new diagnostic information rather than as a reason to push harder. **Raw pinellia is toxic and must be properly processed before use.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.