Aucklandia and Flying Squirrel Powder

Four medicinals, and three of them are the standard answer to a cold obstructed abdomen — pungent cinnamon at double weight to warm and open, costus root to free the qi, white peony to soften the cramp. The fourth is the one that names the formula alongside the costus: 五靈脂, flying-squirrel droppings, which is the tradition's blood-moving drug for fixed stabbing pain and the other half of Silso-san. So the reading of abdominal pain in a suppurative illness is cold and stasis rather than heat, which is consistent with the rest of 癰疽雜證 — the whole subsection treats what the infection has done to the centre, not the infection. Read it beside Takrionjung-tang on the next leaf, which answers the same abdominal pain when diarrhoea, hiccough and stupor have come with it and the yang has fallen; this one is the lesser case, pain alone. Abdominal pain in a patient with an abscess is a finding to take seriously rather than to warm — an intra-abdominal source, an ileus or early sepsis are all commoner than a cold centre, and all need imaging rather than cinnamon. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.