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Formulas · Warm the Interior 溫裏 · Jeoneul (錢乙)

Costus Root Pill

Mokhyang-hwan

한글 목향환  ·  Pinyin Mu Xiang Wan

木香丸

This is not 木香元 (line 931 of the transcription), the Deukhyo pill for 疳痢 at the end of this same 1.38.16 疳瘡 section — coptis, costus, magnolia bark, amomum, bat droppings and chebula flesh — which a sibling batch registers. The two share only the costus and the 元/丸 of the name is the only difference between them. Nor is it any of the twenty-odd other 木香 formulas in the corpus, all of which carry a second element in the name. 千金子 is not in the herb tables under that name. The Donguibogam itself gives the identification: Tangaek 湯液 prints 續隨子 ○ 一名千金子, and the Dry Stool chapter's single-drug entry opens 千金子一名續隨子. It is therefore carried as 續隨子, `sokssuja`, with the leaf's own name in the preparation field; the alias wants adding to the herb table. The case says 一女子, a girl or young woman, which is unusual wording in a chapter of infants and is printed as it stands. The leaf writes 為 for 爲, normalized.

Composition 構成

Total 86 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 3 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

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

  • 冷疳 — cold gan, with much thirst, a liking for lying on cold ground, restlessness and crying, slipping stool and wasting

Biomedical correlates

  • Chronic diarrhoea with wasting in a young child
  • Intestinal roundworm as a contributing cause

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治冷疳. 木香ㆍ靑黛ㆍ檳榔ㆍ肉豆蔲 各二錢半, 麝香 一錢半, 千金子(去皮炒) 一兩, 蝦蟆(晒乾燒存性). 右爲末, 蜜丸菉豆大, 每三五丸至一二十丸, 薄荷湯下. ○一女子得疳疾, 百藥無效, 與此藥不數服而愈, 後用無不獲效. 《錢乙》

Translation

Treats cold gan. Costus root, natural indigo, areca nut and nutmeg, 2 don 5 fun each; musk, 1 don 5 fun; caper spurge seed (skinned and stir-fried), 1 nyang; toad (sun-dried, then burnt with its nature preserved). Powder the above and make honey pills the size of mung beans; give three to five pills, up to ten or twenty, down in mint decoction. ○ A girl had gan disease and a hundred drugs had no effect; she was given this medicine and was well before she had taken many doses, and afterwards it never failed to work. — Jeoneul 錢乙 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Costus, areca and nutmeg over indigo, with musk, caper spurge seed and burnt toad. Qian Yi's pill for the late cold form of gan, and the leaf keeps his case with it: a girl no other drug had helped, well in a few doses. It is the only outcome report in the section, and it is worth reading for what it is — one uncontrolled case, recalled by the physician who prescribed, in a disease that fluctuates. There is a mechanism under it, though not the one claimed. Areca nut is a real anthelmintic, and so is the burnt toad's company in this tradition; if the girl was carrying a worm burden, clearing it would have produced exactly this kind of recovery. See the anthelmintic statement on 使君子丸 (`sagunja-hwan`). The point made in full on 胡黃連丸 (`hohwangryeon-hwan`) still holds: the pill is not food, and 疳 is starvation. **Contains caper spurge seed — 千金子, 續隨子 — a whole nyang of it, in a pill for a wasted child with diarrhoea, and the text gives no dose by weight anywhere. This must not be prepared.** Euphorbia lathyris seed is a drastic purgative of the same family as croton; its diterpene esters are irritant to gut and skin and it is given here as the largest single component. In a child already losing fluid, this is the dangerous drug on the leaf, more so than the musk or the toad. **Contains musk — 麝香 — from a CITES Appendix I deer.** It cannot legally be traded, and the demand this tradition created is a direct cause of the musk deer's decline. For the toad, see 如聖丸 (`yeoseong-hwan`) — here it is burnt, which destroys most of the glycoside. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.

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