Another Formula for Clove Sore

Ilbang

한글 일방(정저) · Pinyin Yi Fang

一方

Given in the source as 一方, an unnamed formula standing in the 疔疽 section after the 脫疽疔 passage, and entered here under a descriptive identifier taken from the section. It has nothing to do with the three unnamed 一方 entries of the 黃疸 chapter (chihyeok-bang-1 and following) or with the 肺癰 one of the upper part of this chapter (pyeongong-ilbang). 土蜂房, the nest of a ground wasp, is not separately registered in the herb list and is entered under 露蜂房 by way of the 蜂房 alias; the leaf's distinction between the earth nest and the hanging nest is kept in the preparation. The vessel and the yellow clay that lutes it are apparatus for the calcining and are named in the method rather than as ingredients. 煆 is left as the transcription and the corpus both print it.

Composition 構成

Nobongbang Lu Feng Fang
露蜂房 노봉방 · Hornet's Nest

—
Chief 君

土蜂房一窠 — one whole nest of a ground wasp, not the hanging hornet's nest; sealed in yellow clay and calcined with its nature preserved
Satoe She Tui
蛇蛻 사퇴 · Snake Slough

—
Deputy 臣

蛇蛻全者一條 — one snake slough, a whole one; sealed in yellow clay and calcined with its nature preserved

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 2 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 a clove sore in a critical state — two doses cure it, one dose answers a light case
A ground-wasp nest and a whole snake slough sealed in yellow clay and calcined with their nature preserved
Taken in good wine on an empty stomach, 1 don to a dose
Followed by Oseong-tang

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

疔疽危篤 — clove sore in a critical state
Severe pain in the abdomen a short while after the dose, then the pain stopping and the sore already turned to yellow water

Biomedical correlates

Furuncle or malignant pustule of the face or limb — the 疔 of this chapter
Cutaneous anthrax — a reading the chapter's own account of the disease invites

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治疔疽危篤, 二服卽愈, 輕者一服效. 土蜂房一窠, 蛇蛻全者一條. 右盛器中, 黃泥固濟, 火煆存性, 爲細末. 每一錢, 空心好酒調服. 少頃腹中大痛, 痛止而其瘡已化爲黃水矣. 因服五聖湯. 《瑞竹》

Translation

Treats a clove sore in a critical state; two doses cure it, and in a light case one dose answers. One whole nest of a ground wasp; one snake slough, a whole one. Put them in a vessel, lute it with yellow clay, and calcine them in the fire with their nature preserved; then grind to a fine powder. One don to a dose, stirred into good wine and taken on an empty stomach. After a short while there is severe pain in the abdomen; the pain stops, and the sore has already turned to yellow water. Follow it with Oseong-tang. — Seojuk 瑞竹 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Two drugs and a case record in four clauses — which is why the leaf is worth keeping whole rather than reducing to a composition. A ground wasp's nest and one entire snake slough are sealed in a clay-luted vessel, fired until charred but not to ash, ground, and taken in good wine on an empty stomach. Then the record: 少頃腹中大痛, a short while later severe pain in the abdomen; 痛止而其瘡已化爲黃水矣, the pain stops, and the sore has already turned to yellow water. Only after that does the leaf send the patient on to 五聖湯. The abdominal pain is not described as a side effect but as the sign that the drug has taken hold, and the sore liquefying is the endpoint — the toxin read as having been drawn inward, resolved, and passed off as fluid. The choice of materials follows the same sympathetic reasoning as 三生散 earlier in the chapter, and the whole snake slough in particular: a skin shed entire is held to make a sore come away entire. The insistence on 全者, a whole one, is part of the prescription rather than a detail of grading. 疔 as this chapter describes it — a small hard swelling with a black head sunk into it like a nail, spreading fast, killing in a day or two, and arising above all from eating the flesh of cattle and beasts dead of plague — maps onto cutaneous anthrax closely enough that the resemblance should be noted, though the thirteen kinds the chapter counts clearly take in ordinary furuncles and other pyogenic sores as well. **The powder is charred wasp nest and snake skin swallowed in wine, with no therapeutic action and with contamination risk, and the wasp nest can provoke an allergic reaction in anyone sensitised to vespid venom. This must not be prepared.** A rapidly spreading sore with a black centre, especially on the face, is a surgical and infectious-disease emergency; if anthrax is possible it is a notifiable disease and needs immediate antibiotics. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.