Formulas · Purge Downward 瀉下 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Purple Frost Pill

Jasang-hwan

한글 자상환 · Pinyin Zi Shuang Wan

紫霜丸

The transcription's 搗 is printed 擣 and 𤍠 is printed 熱, per the normalisation table. The phonetic gloss on 哯 is carried as a sochu span (細註) rather than a parenthesis, since it is an interlinear note and not a preparation gloss.

Composition 構成

Daejaseok Dai Zhe Shi
代赭石 대자석 · Hematite

40 g
Chief 君

quenched in vinegar seven times (醋淬七次)
Jeokseokji Chi Shi Zhi
赤石脂 적석지 · Red Halloysite

40 g
Chief 君
Padu Ba Dou
巴豆 파두 · Croton Seed

—
Deputy 臣

thirty seeds (三十粒), skin and oil removed (去皮油) · toxic — a violent purgative and vesicant
Haengin Xing Ren
杏仁 행인 · Apricot Kernel

—
Assistant 佐

fifty kernels (五十箇), skin and tips removed (去皮尖)
Bongmil Feng Mi
蜂蜜 봉밀 · Honey

—
Envoy 使

a little honey, only if the mass is too hard

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 food epilepsy and the food accumulation and phlegm lump behind it, by driving the accumulation out
Pills graded to the age of the infant, down to a hemp-seed for a baby in its first month

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Food epilepsy (食癎) with accumulation in the abdomen and sour-smelling stool
Bringing up milk, restless sleep and constant startling as the forerunner of seizures

Biomedical correlates

Historically used for seizures attributed to feeding in infants
Recorded for historical reference only

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治食癎, 及腹中有食積ㆍ痰癖, 吐哯乳<span class='sochu'>音顯, 不嘔而吐也</span>. 代赭石(醋淬七次)ㆍ赤石脂各一兩, 巴豆三十粒(去皮油), 杏仁五十箇(去皮尖). 右先將杏仁泥ㆍ巴豆霜, 入二石末相和, 擣千杵, 若硬入少蜜, 貯密器中. 月內兒服麻子大一粒, 乳汁化下, 百日內服小豆大. ○食癎用此取積, 並不虛人. 凡兒有熱, 不欲飮乳, 眠睡不寧, 常常驚悸, 此皆發癎之漸, 卽以此藥導之, 減其盛勢, 則無驚風ㆍ釣癎之患矣. 《入門》 ○一方, 赭石二錢, 巴豆二十一粒(去皮油), 杏仁二十一箇. 右末, 飯丸粟米大. 《錢乙》

Translation

Treats food epilepsy, and food accumulation and phlegm lump in the abdomen, and the bringing up of milk — 哯 is read 顯, and means to bring up without retching. Haematite quenched in vinegar seven times, and red halloysite, 1 nyang each; thirty croton seeds with the skin and oil removed; fifty apricot kernels with the skin and tips removed. First take the apricot kernel paste and the croton frost, put them in with the powder of the two minerals and mix, pound a thousand strokes, and if it is too hard add a little honey; store it in a sealed vessel. A baby in its first month takes one pill the size of a hemp-seed, dissolved down in breast milk; within a hundred days, one the size of a small bean. ○ For food epilepsy this is used to take out the accumulation and it does not weaken the person. Whenever a child has heat, will not take the breast, sleeps badly and startles constantly, these are all the beginnings of an epilepsy breaking out; lead it away at once with this medicine and reduce the gathering force, and there will be no trouble with fright convulsion or hooked epilepsy. — Immun 入門 ○ Another version has haematite, 2 don; twenty-one croton seeds with the skin and oil removed; twenty-one apricot kernels. Powder them and bind with cooked rice into pills the size of a millet grain. — Jeoneul 錢乙 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

**Contains croton seed, a violent purgative and vesicant. The patient is a newborn, the text gives no dose by weight anywhere, and this must not be prepared.** 巴豆 is thirty seeds, pressed to a frost; it blisters skin on contact and empties the bowel violently. The leaf then names its patient outright — 月內兒, a baby in its first month, taking a hemp-seed-sized pill dissolved in breast milk. A newborn has roughly 250 ml of blood and no reserve against fluid loss; a violent purgative can kill such a child by dehydration alone, which is the same mechanism that killed the 慢脾風 children this chapter tries to warm back to life. The claim the leaf makes — 並不虛人, it does not weaken the person — is exactly wrong. The other drugs are less dramatic but not nothing. 代赭石 is haematite and 赤石脂 is a halloysite clay, both largely inert mineral astringents taken at 1 nyang apiece. 杏仁 is fifty apricot kernels: these contain amygdalin, which releases cyanide on digestion, and apricot-kernel cyanide poisoning in small children is a documented modern problem. Divided across a batch of pills the per-dose amount is small, but it is one more unquantified toxic exposure in an infant. See 定魄丸 for what epilepsy in a child is and what treats it. 食癎 — 'food epilepsy', attributed to a fright taken during feeding and to accumulation turning sour in the gut — has no modern counterpart; feeding does not cause epilepsy. The prodrome the leaf lists, a feverish baby who will not feed, sleeps badly and startles constantly, is a genuinely worrying infant, but what that describes is sepsis or meningitis, and purging such a child is the single most harmful thing on offer. The leaf also records a second, smaller 錢乙 version at roughly a fifth of the croton. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.