Formulas · External Application 外用 · Boncho (本草)

Method of Placing Yin Glue

Jeomeumgyo-beop

한글 점음교법 · Pinyin Dian Yin Jiao Fa

點陰膠法

Not a prescription. 陰膠, the steam-grime scraped from inside a long-used rice steamer, is registered for this leaf as eumgyo; the leaf's own gloss — 久用甑中氣垢 — is the only definition of it there is. Registered as a leaf because the Internal and External Abscesses section cites it by name, directing that 內疽 be approached by this method first.

Composition 構成

Eumgyo Yin Jiao
陰膠 음교 · Steamer Crust

—
Chief 君

少許 — a pinch placed in the mouth; the leaf glosses it 久用甑中氣垢, the steam-grime from inside a long-used rice steamer

Total 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

A test, not a treatment — a little Yin glue placed in the mouth to find where an internal 疽 lies
Said to run straight to the place and make it ache, by which it is known

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

內疽 — an abscess within the body, whose seat is not visible

Biomedical correlates

No biomedical reading — a divinatory locating test

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

欲知內疽所在, 點陰膠少許於口中, 卽知藏府所起, 直達至住處, 知痛, 足可醫也. 陰膠卽是久用甑中氣垢也. ○雷公云: 知瘡所在, 口點陰膠. 《本草》

Translation

To learn where an internal abscess lies, place a little Yin glue in the mouth; the viscus it rises from is known at once, for it goes straight to the place where the thing sits, and there is pain, by which it may be treated. Yin glue is the crust of steam-grime inside a long-used rice steamer. ○ Lei Gong says: to know where a sore is, place Yin glue in the mouth. — Boncho 本草 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

This is a divinatory test and should be described as nothing else. A pinch of the crust that builds up inside a steamer is put on the tongue, and the sensation it is said to produce — a movement running to one spot and aching there — is read as telling which organ the hidden abscess belongs to. The authority given is Lei Gong, which places it in the oldest layer of materia medica lore rather than in clinical practice. There is no mechanism. A tasted substance cannot travel to an abscess or make it ache, and nothing about steamer grime localizes anything. Where it sits in the chapter is as the first step for 內疽, the abscess one cannot see — which is exactly the case where the tradition had no way of looking and reached for a sign instead. It is worth registering as a record of that problem, and worth keeping out of any account of how the tradition examined patients. **Steamer grime is burnt food residue and soot of unknown composition, and the practice has no diagnostic value whatever. It must not be used.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.