Formulas · Release the Exterior 解表 · Deukhyo (得效)

Transform Toxin Decoction

Hwadok-tang

한글 화독탕 · Pinyin Hua Du Tang

化毒湯

紫草茸 is entered under 紫草 with the downy young shoot named in the preparation, following the corpus's practice for that drug; there is no separate entry for the 茸. The fifty grains of rice are counted and so carry no weight.

Composition 構成

Jacho Zi Cao
紫草 자초 · Purple Gromwell Root

4 g
Chief 君

紫草茸, the downy young shoot, 1 don
Seungma Sheng Ma
升麻 승마 · Cimicifuga

2 g
Deputy 臣

5 pun
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

2 g
Envoy 使

5 pun
Nami Nuo Mi
糯米 나미 · Glutinous Rice

—
Envoy 使

五十粒, fifty grains, decocted with the rest

Total 8 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 1 ingredient 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 pox that does not come out freely
Claims further to make the pox sparse
Decocted together with fifty grains of glutinous rice

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

痘出不快 — the eruption slow or incomplete
A dense eruption the formula is meant to thin

Biomedical correlates

Smallpox, eruptive stage

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治痘出不快, 且令稀少. 紫草茸一錢, 升麻ㆍ甘草各五分. 右剉, 作一貼, 入糯米五十粒, 同煎服神效. 《得效》

Translation

Treats pox that will not come out freely, and further makes them sparse. The downy shoot of arnebia, 1 don; cimicifuga and licorice, 5 pun each. Cut up the above, make one packet, add fifty grains of glutinous rice, decoct them together and take; divine effect. — Deukhyo 得效 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Three drugs and a handful of glutinous rice: arnebia shoot at a don leading, cimicifuga and licorice at five pun, the rice as a demulcent and a vehicle. It is the smallest of the outthrusting formulas in the section and the base on which 透肌湯 and the 四聖散 pair are built. **The claim in the second clause is the one worth stopping at.** 且令稀少 — and it further makes them sparse. The number of lesions was the single best predictor of whether a child with smallpox would live, so this is a formula whose stated second action is precisely the thing that would have mattered most. It is also the one thing nothing in the materia medica could do. The lesion count was set by the amount of virus that had already replicated and disseminated before the rash appeared, days before any of this was given. A sparse eruption and a dense one were two different diseases by the time anyone could see either, and no drug moved a child from one to the other. That the tradition made the claim anyway is not dishonesty; it is what follows from the 胎毒 doctrine, in which the pox is a poison coming out and a medicine can govern how much comes out at a time. On smallpox having no treatment at all, see sodok-eum-soa. **The patient is a child with smallpox, and the leaf gives drug weights but no dose scaled to the child's age or weight.** Nothing in this formula is poisonous; arnebia is the one drug in it that carries a real caution, and that caution is set out on jacho-eum. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.