Formulas · Clear Heat 淸熱 · Seui Deukhyobang (世醫得效方)

Ginger and Coptis Powder

Hyanggang-san

한글 향강산 · Pinyin Xiang Jiang San

香薑散

Composition 構成

Hwangryeon Huang Lian
黃連 황련 · Coptis

80 g
Chief 君

cut up
Saenggang Sheng Jiang
生薑 생강 · Fresh Ginger

160 g
Envoy 使

cut bean-sized, pickled overnight with the coptis and slow-fried until purple, then discarded

Total 240 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts.

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 dawn diarrhoea

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Damp heat with a dawn stool
Dawn diarrhoea not answering to warming

Biomedical correlates

Early-morning diarrhoea
Bile-acid diarrhoea

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治晨泄. 生薑四兩, 切如豆大; 黃連二兩, 剉. 右同淹一宿, 慢火炒薑紫色, 去薑不用, 將黃連爲末, 每二錢, 茶淸調服, 一劑而愈. 若欲速效, 一料分作四服. 《得效》

Translation

Treats dawn diarrhoea. Fresh ginger, 4 nyang, cut bean-sized; coptis, 2 nyang, cut up. Pickle them together overnight, slow-fry until the ginger turns purple, discard the ginger and use it no further, powder the coptis, and take 2 don each time stirred into clear tea — one course and it is healed. If a quick effect is wanted, divide one batch into four doses. — Seui Deukhyobang 得效 (Donguibogam · Daebyeon)

Clinical commentary 臨床

A striking formula, because it is for the same dawn diarrhoea the rest of the section treats with psoralea and nutmeg — and it is a cold drug. The ginger is not an ingredient but a processing medium: it is fried with the coptis until it turns purple, then thrown away, leaving a coptis that has been tempered by ginger without the ginger's warmth. So the chapter offers two readings of the same sign, cold and hot, and this is the one for a dawn stool that warming has failed to settle — which, given how often bile-acid diarrhoea presents exactly that way, is a distinction worth having. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.