Inner Freeing Coptis Decoction

This is the head of the draining side of the chapter. The 癰疽門 sets two answers against each other: 托裏, supporting the interior so that the swelling is thrust outward and ripens, and 疏 or 利, freeing and precipitating so that the toxin is carried down and out through the stool. The method leaf is explicit about which belongs where — an outward pattern should be dispersed through the surface with Hwangryeonsodok-san or Naetakganghwal-tang, while an inward pattern should be dredged and conducted with Naesohwangryeon-tang or Seonbanghwalmyeong-eum, and the lighter case with Cheongyeolsodok-eum. Read against the Tongue-and-Interior formulas, which supply ginseng, astragalus and Korean angelica to a depleted body, this one assumes a strong body with a stopped gut, and the whole prescription is organised around moving it. Rhubarb leads at 2 don. Behind it forsythia and red peony for the swelling, then the three cold bitters — coptis, scutellaria, gardenia — and areca and aucklandia to push the stalled qi downward, with mint and platycodon in small amounts to keep something moving upward and outward as well. The endpoint is written as a dose instruction rather than a cure: 以通利爲度, take it until the bowels move freely. That is a real and checkable clinical measure, and the honest modern reading of the formula is that it is a purgative given to a febrile, constipated patient with a suppurating infection. It does not treat the infection. Nothing in the leaf drains an abscess, and a deep abscess with fever needs drainage and antibiotics. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.