Formulas · External Application 外用 · Jikji (直指)

Arnebia Salve

Jacho-go

한글 자초고 · Pinyin Zi Cao Gao

紫草膏

紫草茸 is entered under 紫草 with the downy young shoot named in the preparation; the corpus has no separate entry for the 茸. 黃栢 is left as the transcription prints it. The two bean flours are measured by volume, 一合 each, and so carry no grams. The lard and the clear oil are alternatives in the leaf, and only the lard is entered, with the alternative named in its preparation.

Composition 構成

Jacho Zi Cao
紫草 자초 · Purple Gromwell Root

20 g
Chief 君

紫草茸, the downy young shoot
Hwangnyeon Huang Lian
黃連 황련 · Coptis

20 g
Chief 君
Hwangbaek Huang Bai
黃柏 황백 · Phellodendron

20 g
Deputy 臣
Nuro Lou Lu
漏蘆 누로 · Rhaponticum Root

20 g
Deputy 臣
Jeoksodu Chi Xiao Dou
赤小豆 적소두 · Adzuki Bean

—
Assistant 佐

赤小豆末一合, a hop of powdered adzuki bean
Nokdu Lu Dou
菉豆 녹두 · Mung Bean

—
Assistant 佐

菉豆粉一合, a hop of mung-bean flour
Jeoji Zhu Zhi
猪脂 저지 · Lard

—
Envoy 使

猪脂, lard — or clear oil in its place, to work the powder up

Total 80 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 3 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 the heat-toxin sore
Four cooling drugs powdered with adzuki and mung-bean flour and worked up with lard or clear oil
Painted on three times a day

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

熱毒瘡 — the heat-toxin sore, which is painful but does not itch and sticks to the bedding

Biomedical correlates

Acute exudative dermatitis with heat and pain
Superficial burn-like inflammatory sores

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治熱毒瘡. 紫草茸ㆍ黃連ㆍ黃栢ㆍ漏蘆各五錢, 赤小豆末ㆍ菉豆粉各一合. 右爲末, 猪脂或淸油調, 日三付. 《直指》

Translation

Treats the heat-toxin sore. The downy shoot of arnebia, coptis, phellodendron and rhaponticum, 5 don of each; powdered adzuki bean and mung-bean flour, 1 hop of each. Powder the above, work it up with lard or with clear oil, and apply three times a day. — Jikji 直指 (Donguibogam · Jechang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

A cooling paste rather than a true salve. Arnebia shoot, coptis, phellodendron and rhaponticum are the cooling and toxin-resolving half; the hop each of adzuki and mung-bean flour is bulk, and it is doing real work — the two flours are cool, absorbent and soothing, and they give the paste body without a resin or a wax. Lard or plain oil carries it. It is prescribed for 熱毒瘡, which the chapter describes exactly: sores over the whole body that hurt without itching, stick to the clothes and bedding, and keep the patient awake. That is an acutely inflamed, weeping dermatitis, and the section's other recommendation for it is 葵花散. As a dressing this is sound in principle — cool, bland, occlusive — and the drugs in it are not hazardous. Coptis and phellodendron both carry berberine, which has real antibacterial activity in vitro, though not at the concentration a lard paste delivers. **Lard on an open, weeping sore is an occlusive dressing applied without sterility and can seal infection in; an acutely inflamed exudative eruption is dressed with clean, non-occlusive material.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.