Formulas · Purge Downward 瀉下 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Morning Glory Seed Wine

Gyeonu-ju

한글 견우주 · Pinyin Qian Niu Jiu

牽牛酒

黑牽牛 is the black seed of the morning glory, registered under 牽牛子 by way of the alias; 頭末 is the first and finest powder off the sieve, and the corpus keeps the term. The thread and the wet paper are apparatus and are kept in the method. The alternative name 猪腎酒 and the whole of the 直指 commentary stand under ○ in the leaf and are translated with it.

Composition 構成

Gyeonuja Qian Niu Zi
牽牛子 견우자 · Morning Glory Seed (strong)

8 g
Chief 君

黑牽牛頭末二錢, the first powder of the black seed, 2 don · a drastic purgative
Jeosin Zhu Shen
猪腎 저신 · Pig Kidney

—
Deputy 臣

猪腰子, one pig kidney, the powder packed inside it, tied with thread, wrapped in wet paper and roasted slow in the embers · raw animal organ
Ju Jiu
酒 주 · Wine

—
Envoy 使

溫酒, warm wine to send it down

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

Draws the foul water out of a fistulous sore and brings it away through the large intestine
Two don of the first powder of black morning glory seed packed into a pig's kidney, tied with thread, wrapped in wet paper and roasted slow in the embers
Chewed fine on an empty stomach and sent down with warm wine

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

漏瘡中惡水 — the foul water in a fistulous sore
腎虛水溢則滲漉於漏瘡 — where the kidney is depleted and water overflows, it seeps and trickles out at the fistula

Biomedical correlates

Chronic discharging fistula or sinus
Persistent serous discharge from a wound

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

引漏瘡中惡水自大腸出. 黑牽牛頭末二錢, 入猪腰子內, 以線札縛, 濕紙包, 慢火煨熟, 空心細嚼, 溫酒送下. 《入門》 ○一名猪腎酒. 夫水屬腎也, 腎虛水溢則滲漉於漏瘡. 行腎之水, 無如黑牽牛. 取細末入猪腎服之, 則借腎入腎, 兩得其便. 惡水旣泄, 則不復淋漓矣. 《直指》

Translation

Draws the foul water in a fistulous sore out by way of the large intestine. The first powder of black morning glory seed, 2 don, packed inside a pig's kidney, tied up with thread, wrapped in wet paper and roasted slow in the embers; chewed fine on an empty stomach and sent down with warm wine. ○ Also called Jeosin-ju, pig kidney wine. Now water belongs to the kidney, and where the kidney is depleted and water overflows, it seeps and trickles out at the fistula. For moving the water of the kidney there is nothing like black morning glory seed. Take it as a fine powder inside a pig's kidney, and you borrow a kidney to enter the kidney, and gain both ways at once. Once the foul water has been discharged, the trickling does not return. — Immun 入門 · Jikji 直指 (Donguibogam · Jechang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Two don of a violent purgative baked inside a pig's kidney, and a page of reasoning to explain why. The 直指 lays it out without hedging: water belongs to the kidney; a depleted kidney lets water overflow; the overflow seeps out at the fistula; so move the kidney's water and the fistula dries. 借腎入腎, borrow a kidney to enter the kidney — the pig's kidney is not a vehicle but an argument, carrying the drug to the organ it resembles. 兩得其便, you gain both ways at once. The mechanism claimed is drainage by redirection: the discharge is to come away through the bowel instead of through the sinus, 自大腸出. Morning glory seed will certainly produce that bowel action. It will not do anything to the sinus, because a fistula does not discharge from an excess of body water — it discharges because an epithelialised track connects a cavity to the surface and something is keeping the cavity open. **Black morning glory seed is a drastic purgative; 2 don produces violent watery diarrhoea with cramping, and in a frail patient dehydration and electrolyte loss. The pig's kidney is raw animal organ meat roasted in paper rather than properly cooked. This must not be prepared.** A fistula that will not stop draining needs its track imaged and traced and the cause dealt with; purging the patient will only make a chronically ill one weaker, which is precisely contrary to what 內塞散, the prescription that stands beside this one in the section, is trying to do. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.