Earthworm Drink

The shortest leaf in this part of the chapter and the most single-minded. Everything in it is cold and taken cold: live earthworms ground raw, mint juice, raw honey, water drawn fresh from the well, and borneol added when the fever is at its worst. There is no decoction and no warming drug anywhere in it, which marks it off sharply from the aromatic formulas on either side. Earthworm is the chapter's cold drug of choice for a heat that has gone past the point where an aromatic would help, and the mint and borneol are there for the head — vexation, agitation, the patient who cannot be still. As acute symptom relief for a hyperpyrexial patient the logic holds; cooling and fluid are the right instincts. **The preparation is raw ground earthworm taken internally and carries a real risk of parasitic and bacterial infection. This must not be prepared.** It is recorded as history. High fever with agitation in a malarial illness may be cerebral malaria, which is a medical emergency. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.