Pearl Powder

Ten things in equal parts: the bitter pair coptis and phellodendron, the resin pair frankincense and myrrh, catechu and stir-fried Chinese gall for astringency, calomel and lead powder as the metal actives, and pearl and ivory as the expensive mineral finish. It is the most elaborate of the dusting powders and the one most clearly built to impress. Pearl and ivory are both calcium-rich and ground fine, so they behave as inert absorbent powders; catechu and Chinese gall are heavily tannic and genuinely astringent, which is the part of this formula that would have done something. The preliminary rice-water wash is the section's standing irrigation step, and 糝上, dust it on, is the step that follows — the same wash-and-dust regimen as every other leaf here. **Contains calomel (mercurous chloride) and lead powder (lead carbonate), both absorbed through ulcerated skin, both cumulative, and between them capable of mercury poisoning and lead nephropathy and neuropathy. It also contains ivory, from a CITES-protected species. This must not be prepared.** A chancre that will not heal needs serological testing and systemic antibiotics; the chapter itself says a few lines earlier that it otherwise 必成楊梅瘡, becomes syphilis, and it was right about that. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.