Formulas · External Application 外用 · Sokbang (俗方)

Yellow Beeswax Salve

Hwangnap-go

한글 황랍고 · Pinyin Huang La Gao

黃蠟膏

The Bogam carries three formulas called 黃蠟膏, and this leaf gives a composition of its own rather than a cross-reference, so it is registered in its own right. The bare id hwangrap-go is held by the 皮門 formula from the Deukhyo — clear oil, beeswax, white lead and gallnut, for chapped and fissured hands and feet — and hwangrap-go-jechang by the 膁瘡 formula from the Immun, a seven-ingredient wax plaster with gum benzoin, dragon bone, halloysite and dragon's blood. This one, three ingredients in equal parts from the Sokbang, takes the numbered tail as the corpus does at paemo-san-2. The three share only the beeswax. 香油 is entered under 淸油, the id the herb list carries it under. 加油髮灰 is read as one drug, 油髮灰, the ash of oiled hair, and entered under 頭髮; it could also be read as two additions, more oil and hair ash, and the leaf gives no 各 or ㆍ to settle it. This is the 黃蠟膏 that the 生肌方 leaf at the end of the section points back to with 三方見上, its own indication 能生肌 answering that leaf's 令生肌; the 膁瘡 leaf's citation of 黃蠟膏 after 爐灰膏 is the Immun formula, not this one.

Composition 構成

Cheongyu Qing You
淸油 청유 · Clear Sesame Oil

—
Chief 君

香油, sesame oil; equal parts
Hwangnap Huang La
黃蠟 황랍 · Beeswax

—
Chief 君

equal parts
Songji Song Zhi
松脂 송지 · Pine Resin

—
Deputy 臣

equal parts
Baldu Tou Fa
頭髮 발두 · Human Hair

—
Assistant 佐

油髮灰, the ash of oiled hair, added to make it better still

Total 0 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 4 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 all sores and is able to breed flesh
Sesame oil, beeswax and pine resin in equal parts, melted together and laid on once set
The ash of oiled hair added makes it better still

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

諸瘡 — all sores, where new flesh is wanted
A clean wound needing a protective dressing while it fills in

Biomedical correlates

Wound dressing — topical ointment base
Clean granulating ulcer

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治諸瘡, 能生肌. 香油ㆍ黃蠟ㆍ松脂各等分. 右熔化, 待凝貼之. 加油髮灰尤妙. 《俗方》

Translation

Treats all sores and is able to breed flesh. Sesame oil, beeswax and pine resin, equal parts of each. Melt the above together, wait until it sets, and lay it on. Adding the ash of oiled hair makes it better still. — Sokbang 俗方 (Donguibogam · Jechang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The plainest ointment in the chapter and the only one with no drug in it at all: sesame oil, beeswax and pine resin in equal parts, melted together and allowed to set, then laid on as a sheet. The 俗方 label marks it as common practice rather than a book formula, and that is what it reads like. What it does is what an ointment base does. Oil and wax in equal parts give a firm, spreadable mass; the resin makes it tacky enough to stay on. 能生肌 claims that it breeds flesh, and in the only sense that matters it is right — a clean wound kept moist and covered granulates faster than one left to dry and scab, which is the principle behind every occlusive dressing in use now. The hair ash is the one odd addition, 髮灰 being the tradition's blood-stanching char. Nothing in it is hazardous, and of all the external preparations in this section it is the one closest to defensible. The caution is sterility rather than toxicity: a home-melted wax salve is not sterile, and charred hair in a wound is a contamination risk, so the 生肌方 leaf's own sequence — get the dead tissue out first — matters more than the dressing. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.