Lord Lao's Divine Illumination Powder

Two aconites carry this powder: six nyang of them in a formula of ten, roasted, against two nyang of white atractylodes and a nyang each of platycodon and asarum. It is primarily an amulet. The powder is coarse, not fine, because it is going into a crimson silk bag to be worn on the body, and the claim made for it — that everyone within a li of the wearer stays well — is a claim about the air around a person rather than about anything swallowed. The second half of the leaf turns it into a medicine for someone who is already ill: a don in warm wine, covered up to sweat, and vomiting taken as the sign of cure; then, if days have passed, a larger spoonful boiled in water. That progression from worn to drunk is unusual among the warding prescriptions, and the dose drops to a quarter of a don of actual aconite per taking, which is the only reason it was survivable at all. **Contains chuanwu aconite and prepared aconite in quantity, both of which are toxic and cardiotoxic even when roasted. The internal doses given here must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.