Prime Scholar Pill

Pattern-based

• Forgetfulness with throbbing and sleeplessness from overwork of the mind
• Poor recall in those who study or hold office
• Heart blood vacuity with a scattered spirit

Biomedical correlates

• Memory impairment from overwork
• Insomnia with poor concentration
• Burnout with cognitive complaints

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

補心生血, 寧神定志. 且臺閣勤政勞心, 燈窓讀書辛苦, 幷健忘怔忡不寐及不善記而多忘者服之, 能日誦千言, 胷藏萬卷. 遠志(薑製)ㆍ龍眼肉ㆍ生乾地黃(酒洗)ㆍ玄參ㆍ朱砂ㆍ石菖蒲 各三錢, 人參ㆍ白茯神ㆍ當歸(酒洗)ㆍ酸棗仁(炒)ㆍ麥門冬ㆍ栢子仁(去油) 各二錢. 右爲末, 獖猪心血和丸菉豆大, 金箔爲衣, 糯米湯下二三十丸. 《回春》

Translation

Supplements the heart and engenders blood; quiets the spirit and settles the will. It is taken by those who wear themselves out at affairs of state in the chancellery, who toil over their books by lamplight, and who have forgetfulness, fearful throbbing and sleeplessness, or who do not remember well and forget much — and it enables a man to recite a thousand words in a day and to store ten thousand scrolls in his breast. Polygala (processed with ginger), longan flesh, raw dried rehmannia (washed in wine), scrophularia, cinnabar and acorus, 3 don each; ginseng, white poria spirit, angelica (washed in wine), spiny jujube seed (stir-fried), ophiopogon and arborvitae seed (oil pressed out), 2 don each. Powder them, mix with the heart blood of a gelded pig and make pills the size of a mung bean, coat with gold leaf, and take twenty or thirty with glutinous rice decoction. — Hoechun 回春 (Donguibogam · Sin)