Purslane Salve

Two ingredients. Purslane boiled down to its juice, five nyang of beeswax melted into it, and the mixture reduced until it sets as a salve. It is the simplest leaf in the 膁瘡 section and probably the most useful one. What it makes is a beeswax occlusive carrying a mucilaginous plant juice — close to a modern ointment base. Purslane is succulent, full of mucilage and mildly anti-inflammatory, with nothing in it that will harm an open ulcer, and beeswax over an ulcer does exactly what a hydrocolloid dressing does: it keeps the surface moist and covered. A moist, covered ulcer heals faster than a dry exposed one, which is the single most important thing modern wound care has established, and this salve is on the right side of it. The chapter names it for both the outer and the inner shin ulcer, and for the inner one it is offered as the alternative when the ulcer is not especially damp-hot. The dressing is still only half the treatment, and the chapter knows the other half: 須翹足端坐, 勿多行履, sit upright with the leg raised and do not walk about much. For a venous ulcer elevation and compression are the treatment and the dressing is support. **A leg ulcer that has not healed in weeks needs its arterial supply assessed before any compression, and a long-standing one needs biopsy; an ulcer that is spreading or smells foul needs antibiotics, which no salve supplies.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.