Formulas · External Application 外用 · Jeongyo (精要)

Five Yellows Powder

Ohwang-san

한글 오황산 · Pinyin Wu Huang San

五黃散

The leaf head writes the name 五黄散; it is registered as 五黃散, the vulgar form of the glyph corrected throughout the leaf. 栢 is left as both the transcription and the corpus print it. 《精要》 is romanised Jeongyo, following the corpus.

Composition 構成

Hwangdan Huang Dan
黃丹 황단 · Red Lead (toxic)

—
Chief 君

equal part · lead oxide, toxic
Hwangnyeon Huang Lian
黃連 황련 · Coptis

—
Deputy 臣

equal part
Hwanggeum Huang Qin
黃芩 황금 · Scutellaria

—
Deputy 臣

equal part
Hwangbaek Huang Bai
黃柏 황백 · Phellodendron

—
Deputy 臣

黃栢, equal part
Daehwang Da Huang
大黃 대황 · Rhubarb

—
Deputy 臣

equal part
Yuhyang Ru Xiang
乳香 유향 · Frankincense

—
Assistant 佐

equal part

Total 0 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 6 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

Treats a flogging wound and stops its pain
Mixed with fresh water into a paste, spread on red silk and stuck over the injured place
Changed three times a day

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

杖瘡 — the wound left by a flogging, bruised and broken and hot
Local heat and pain in a beaten surface

Biomedical correlates

Contused and abraded wound of the back or buttocks — topical
Post-traumatic inflammatory pain

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治杖瘡止痛. 黃丹ㆍ黃連ㆍ黃芩ㆍ黃栢ㆍ大黃ㆍ乳香各等分. 右爲末, 新水調成膏, 以緋絹攤貼傷處, 日三易. 《精要》

Translation

Treats a flogging wound and stops the pain. Minium, coptis, scutellaria, phellodendron, rhubarb and frankincense, in equal parts. Powder the above, work it into a paste with fresh water, spread it on red silk and stick it on the injured place, changing it three times a day. — Jeongyo 精要 (Donguibogam · Jesang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Five yellows and a resin, in equal parts, made into a cold paste with fresh water and spread on red silk over a flogged back. The yellows are minium, coptis, scutellaria, phellodendron and rhubarb; the first is a lead oxide and the other four the standard bitter cooling drugs, with frankincense added for pain. Of the chapter's dressings this is the one most clearly aimed at a prisoner's wound after a judicial beating, where there is no fracture to set and nothing to do but cover a large, hot, broken surface. The cooling part of it is not unreasonable — berberine from coptis and phellodendron does have antibacterial activity, and a wet dressing changed three times a day over a contused wound is better care than none. The vehicle is the problem. Minium is lead tetroxide, and lead applied to broken skin three times a day over the days a flogging wound takes to close is absorbed in quantity. Modern care for the same injury is cleaning, a sterile non-adherent dressing, analgesia and tetanus prophylaxis. **Contains minium (黃丹), a lead oxide. Spread on broken skin it is absorbed and causes lead poisoning. This must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.