Formulas · Harmonize 和解 · Uihak Jeongjeon (醫學正傳)

Quince Pill for the Newborn's Unceasing Vomiting

Mokgwa-hwan

한글 목과환 · Pinyin Mu Gua Wan

木瓜丸

膩粉 is 輕粉, calomel — mercurous chloride. The 湯液篇 entry for 輕粉 gives 一名汞粉, 一名水銀粉, 亦名膩粉, 或曰峭粉. 飛煉水銀而成, while 胡粉 is 一名定粉, 一名光粉, 一名瓦粉 and does not take the name, so the ambiguity this note once recorded is closed and the earlier reading of 膩粉 as 胡粉, white lead, is withdrawn here and in the five other leaves that carried it. The section head gives this formula for the newborn whose vomiting will not stop because the filth was not fully wiped from the mouth at birth.

Composition 構成

Mogwa Mu Gua
木瓜 모과 · Chinese Quince

1 g
Chief 君
Sahyang She Xiang
麝香 사향 · Musk (prohibited)

1 g
Deputy 臣
Mokhyang Mu Xiang
木香 목향 · Costus Root

1 g
Deputy 臣
Billang Bing Lang
檳榔 빈랑 · Areca Seed

1 g
Assistant 佐
Gyeongbun Qing Fen
輕粉 경분 · Calomel (toxic)

1 g
Assistant 佐

膩粉 · calomel, mercurous chloride, toxic

Total 5 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts.

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

Stops vomiting that will not stop in the newly born
Moves and bears down what is held to be stuck in the stomach
Given as millet-sized pills in a licorice decoction, one or two at a dose

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Vomiting that will not stop in the newly born (初生吐不止)
Filth swallowed at birth and not fully wiped from the mouth
Qi stagnation in the infant stomach

Biomedical correlates

Persistent vomiting in the neonate
Neonatal gastric obstruction — a surgical question
Acute gastroenteritis of the newborn

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治初生吐不止. 木瓜ㆍ麝香ㆍ木香ㆍ檳榔ㆍ膩粉各一字. 右爲末, 麪糊和丸如黍米大, 甘草湯下一二丸. 《正傳》

Translation

Treats vomiting that will not stop in the newly born. Quince, musk, costus root, areca seed and calomel, 1 ja each. Powder the above and make wheat paste pills the size of millet grains; one or two pills down in a licorice decoction. — Jeongjeon 正傳 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Five drugs at 1 ja each — about a gram apiece — rolled into millet-sized pills, one or two to a newborn. Quince and costus root for the stomach, areca seed to bear down, musk to open, and calomel, a mercury salt, to settle. The chapter's explanation is in the section head rather than the leaf: the filth in the baby's mouth was not fully wiped away at birth and was swallowed, so the vomiting continues until it is moved. **This must not be prepared or given.** 膩粉 is 輕粉, calomel — mercurous chloride, a mercury compound; the 湯液篇 entry for 輕粉 says so outright, 亦名膩粉, and 胡粉, white lead, does not carry the name. **The patient is a newborn.** Mercurous chloride was given to infants by mouth as a purgative and in teething powders into the twentieth century, and it caused acrodynia — pink disease; mercury injures a developing nervous system irreversibly at doses that leave an adult unharmed. The chapter's full mercury statement is on 辰砂膏 (jinsa-go-soa) and the batch's calomel statement on 白餠子 (baekbyeong-ja), and both stand here without being repeated. **The text gives no dose by weight anywhere**: 一字 weighs the powder, not the child. **Musk is taken from a CITES Appendix I species**, and the demand this tradition created is a direct cause of the musk deer's decline. Areca seed is a recognised human carcinogen and is not a drug to give a baby. Nothing in this formula should be reproduced in any form. 初生吐不止, vomiting in the newly born that will not stop, is also the phrase that should stop a modern reader. Forceful or persistent vomiting in a baby of a few weeks is an obstruction question — pyloric stenosis, malrotation, atresia — and bile-stained vomit makes it urgent. Where it is gastroenteritis, the treatment is fluid; the full statement on oral rehydration is on 玉露散, the first leaf of this section. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.