Formulas · Clear Heat 淸熱 · Hwarinseo (活人書)

Scallion Bulb Decoction

Haebaek-tang

한글 해백탕 · Pinyin Xie Bai Tang

薤白湯

A staged decoction with the three drugs added in turn — gardenia first, then scallion bulb, then the silk-wrapped fermented soybean — each at a stated reduction.

Composition 構成

Damdusi Dan Dou Chi
淡豆豉 담두시 · Prepared Soybean

30 g
Chief 君

half a hop, wrapped in silk
Haebaek Xie Bai
薤白 해백 · Chinese Chive Bulb

—
Chief 君

one handful
Chija Zhi Zi
梔子 치자 · Gardenia

—
Deputy 臣

seven fruits

Total 30 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

Treats cold damage with diarrhoea like the juice of rotten flesh and red discharge below
and latent qi with abdominal pain
Clears heat and frees the intestines

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Damp heat toxin in the intestines with putrid diarrhoea
Latent qi with abdominal pain and dysentery

Biomedical correlates

Bacillary dysentery
Severe infective colitis

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治傷寒下利如爛肉汁ㆍ赤帶下ㆍ伏氣腹痛. 豆豉半合(綿裹), 薤白一握, 梔子七枚. 右剉, 水二升半, 先煎梔子十沸, 下薤白, 煎至二升, 入豉, 煎至一升二合, 分二服. 《活人》

Translation

Treats cold damage with diarrhoea like the juice of rotten flesh, red discharge below, and latent qi with abdominal pain. Fermented soybean, half a hop, wrapped in silk; scallion bulb, one handful; gardenia, seven fruits. Cut up; in 2 seung 5 hop of water first boil the gardenia through ten boilings, then put in the scallion bulb and boil down to 2 seung, then add the fermented soybean and boil down to 1 seung 2 hop; divide into two doses. — Hwarin 活人 (Donguibogam · Han)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The description is the most vivid in the chapter and it is unmistakable: diarrhoea like the juice of rotten flesh. That is the stool of a severe bacillary dysentery, and the staged decoction that answers it is careful work — gardenia boiled hard first to draw out its bitter principle, scallion bulb added next, and the fermented soybean, which is the most volatile of the three, only at the end and wrapped so it can be lifted out. Three ordinary kitchen materials against a lethal illness, which is the measure both of the observation and of its limits. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.