Ginseng White Tiger Decoction

Insambaekho-tang

한글 인삼백호탕 · Pinyin Ren Shen Bai Hu Tang

人參白虎湯

The Cold Damage chapter gives this inside the leaf of 白虎湯 as 本方加人參一錢, 名曰人參白虎湯, without a leaf of its own. It is registered separately here because six chapters cite it by name — the Cold Damage, Summerheat, Dampness, Wasting Thirst, Skin and Epidemic chapters — and a reader following those citations needs somewhere to arrive.

Composition 構成

Seokgo Shi Gao
石膏 석고 · Gypsum

20 g
Chief 君
Jimo Zhi Mu
知母 지모 · Anemarrhena

8 g
Deputy 臣
Insam Ren Shen
人蔘 인삼 · Ginseng

4 g
Deputy 臣
Gaengmi Jing Mi
粳米 갱미 · Non-glutinous Rice

—
Assistant 佐

half a hop
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

2.8 g
Envoy 使

Total 34.8 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

Drains blazing heat from the qi level while supplementing the qi it has consumed
Generates fluids and stops great thirst

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Yangming heat with profuse sweating and great thirst where the qi is already depleted
Summerheat damage with thirst and a vacuous flooding pulse
Heat epidemic of the yang brightness

Biomedical correlates

High fever with dehydration and exhaustion
Heat stroke
Febrile illness in a depleted patient

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

卽白虎湯本方加人參一錢. 《丹心》

Translation

This is White Tiger Decoction with 1 don of ginseng added to the base formula. — Dansim 丹心 (Donguibogam · Han)

Clinical commentary 臨床

White Tiger with ginseng, which is the version to reach for when the heat is still blazing but the patient has sweated and thirsted himself empty. The Bogam's own usage is consistent about this: it is the yang brightness formula for epidemic and summerheat fevers in 痎瘧 1.8 and 1.10.3 and in 瘟疫 2.4, where the patient has been febrile long enough to be depleted. **In a patient this dehydrated, fluid replacement comes first; the formula is printed as history.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.