Formulas · Tonify Qi 補氣 · Seui Deukhyobang (世醫得效方)

Astragalus Six-to-One Decoction

Hwanggiyugil-tang

한글 황기육일탕  ·  Pinyin Huang Qi Liu Yi Tang

黃芪六一湯

癕 is given above as 癰 and 𥂁 as 鹽; 麄 and 灸 are printed as the transcription has them. 粉草 is the leaf's name for fine licorice and is resolved to the 甘草 entry. The 《精要》 variant at the ○ is a powder rather than a decoction and is recorded in the source text; the ingredient list follows the 《得效》 formula, whose ratio the name counts — six parts astragalus to one of licorice. This leaf is the body for two cross-references that have had nowhere to land: the Wasting Thirst chapter's 黃芪六一湯≪方見癰疽≫ and the Fluids chapter's 黃芪六一湯 方見消渴, the latter written without the ≪≫ marks and pointing at a chapter that itself only points on.

Composition 構成

Total 280 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

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

  • Abscess with vexing thirst (癰疽煩渴)
  • The thirst disease taken long, before an abscess breaks out (渴疾常服可免癰疽之患)
  • Qi vacuity with thirst and spontaneous sweating

Biomedical correlates

  • Diabetes complicated by soft-tissue infection — historical framing
  • Prevention of infection in poorly controlled diabetes — historical framing
  • Spontaneous sweating in a depleted patient

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治癰疽煩渴. 黃芪(蜜灸) 六兩, 甘草(灸) 一兩. 右剉, 每三錢, 入薑三ㆍ棗二, 煎服. 此藥大治渴疾, 常服可免癰疽之患. 《得效》 ○一方, 黃芪 六兩(半生用, 半鹽水潤蒸三次)ㆍ粉草 一兩(半生半灸). 右末, 每二錢, 白湯點服. 《精要》

Translation

Treats an abscess with vexing thirst. Astragalus (honey mix-fried), 6 nyang; licorice (mix-fried), 1 nyang. Cut them up; for each 3 don add three slices of ginger and two jujubes, decoct and take. This medicine greatly treats the thirst disease, and taken regularly it can spare one the trouble of an abscess. — Deukhyo 得效 ○ One formula: astragalus 6 nyang (half of it used raw, half moistened with salt water and steamed three times); fine licorice 1 nyang (half raw, half mix-fried). Powder them and take 2 don at a dose, stirred into plain hot water. — Jeongyo 精要 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Two medicinals in a counted proportion, and the proportion is the name. Six nyang of astragalus to one of licorice, ground coarse and taken three don at a time with ginger and jujube — a long-course powder-decoction rather than a course of packets, which is what the closing line asks for: 常服, taken regularly. The claim made for it is not that it cures an abscess but that it keeps one from happening. That makes it the pivot of the chapter's diabetic thread. Sogal's own leaf says it plainly — 消渴之人, 常須慮患大癰, the person with wasting thirst must always reckon on a great abscess, and it names three medicines to take long: Gagampalmi-won, this one, and Indong-won. The Fluids chapter reaches for it again for spontaneous sweating. Until now the formula had a name in three chapters and a body in none; this is where it stands, and the entry closes that gap. The reading that survives is better than most in the chapter. Soft-tissue infection in poorly controlled diabetes is exactly the clinical pattern described, and the observation that the thirst comes first and the abscess after is a correct one. Astragalus and licorice do not control blood glucose, and licorice at six-to-one for months carries its own problem — glycyrrhizin raises blood pressure and wastes potassium. The idea worth keeping is the surveillance, not the powder. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.

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