Formulas · Release the Exterior 解表 · Jeongjeon (正傳)

Birch Bark Beverage

Hwapi-eumja

한글 화피음자 · Pinyin Hua Pi Yin Zi

樺皮飮子

One of the shortest leaves in the chapter: a single drug, no weight and no dose. 胡荽酒, the next leaf, has 治同上 for its indication and so points back to this one.

Composition 構成

Hwapi Hua Pi
樺皮 화피 · Birch Bark

—
Chief 君

樺皮, sliced (剉) and decocted thick, no weight given

Total 0 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
The bark sliced and decocted thick, and the juice drunk

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

痘不快出 — the eruption slow or incomplete

Biomedical correlates

Smallpox, eruptive stage

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治痘不快出. 樺皮剉, 濃煎汁飮之. 《正傳》

Translation

Treats pox that will not come out freely. Slice birch bark, decoct it thick, and drink the juice. — Jeongjeon 正傳 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Birch bark sliced, boiled down thick, and the liquor drunk. One drug, no weight, no dose, no instruction beyond the method — a household remedy written down as it was given. Birch bark is rich in betulin and betulinic acid, triterpenes which have been studied a good deal for other reasons and which have no action on a poxvirus. The bark has a long external use for skin complaints and birch tar is a real keratolytic, but that is a different preparation and a different route. Taken as a thick decoction by a child with smallpox it did nothing to the eruption. The one thing in its favour is what it is not. There is no mineral in it, no mercury, no arsenic, no scorpion and no musk, and the vehicle is water — so unlike several of its neighbours in this chapter it could not poison the child it was given to. Among the fifteen leaves of this section that is a distinction worth recording. On smallpox having no treatment at all, see sodok-eum-soa. **The patient is a child with smallpox, and the leaf gives no weight and no dose scaled to the child's age or weight.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.