Formulas · External Application 外用 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Rotted Thatch Powder

Paecho-san

한글 패초산 · Pinyin Bai Cao San

敗草散

The single drug has no entry in the herb table: 敗草, the rotted thatch or straw of a long-standing roof, is not registered under that name nor under 爛草, and it has not been resolved to any near neighbour — this entry therefore carries no ingredient row and the drug is named at the foot of the batch file instead. The transcription's 盖 and 卧 are printed as written, both being on the chapter's do-not-normalize list; 隂 is printed 陰 and 觧 is printed 解. No entry of this name stood in the database.

Composition 構成

Total 0 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

Dusted on pox lesions that have broken down and will not dry
Spread on a mat for a child to lie on where the whole body is ulcerated
Held to resolve sore poison

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Flesh breaking down and sloughing, the pus not drying, with pain (肌肉壞爛, 膿不乾作痛)
The whole body ulcerated (渾身瘡爛)
Itching of the pox the child cannot bear (痘痒難任)

Biomedical correlates

Confluent smallpox with extensive skin loss
Weeping denuded skin with secondary bacterial infection

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

多年盖屋上爛草, 晒乾細末, 糝之. 若渾身瘡爛, 則攤於席上, 令坐卧其上. 此草經霜雪雨露, 感天地陰陽之氣, 善解瘡毒. 《入門》

Translation

Rotted straw from a roof thatched many years, sun-dried and powdered fine; dust it on. If the whole body is ulcerated, spread it out on a mat and have the child sit and lie upon it. This straw has passed through frost and snow and rain and dew, and has taken in the yin and yang qi of heaven and earth, so it is good at resolving sore poison. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

This is the chief formula of 1.85.12 斑爛 — the section head names it first, before anything else — and 1.85.11 sends the unbearable itch to it as well. 斑爛 is the pox breaking down and weeping: the section defines it exactly, 痘毒出盛表虛難靨, 以致肌肉壞爛, the eruption heavy and the surface too weak to crust, so the flesh goes to rot. The stated rationale is weathering — straw that has stood under frost, snow, rain and dew has taken in the qi of heaven and earth, and is therefore good at resolving sore poison. What the section describes is extensive full-thickness loss of skin, and the skin is an organ. Lose enough of it and the barrier goes with it: water and plasma protein pour out of the raw surface, the child cannot hold temperature, and bacteria enter through a wound the size of the body. Before intravenous fluid, electrolyte correction, temperature control and modern wound care, that picture could not be survived, and the Bogam says as much in another chapter — the Strange Diseases chapter's 4.1.22 渾身生燎疱 describes blisters over the whole body, each breaking and running water, the crop returning and drawing away all the skin and flesh, and writes 不可治, it cannot be treated. That judgement was correct, and it is the same clinical picture as this section. **And this powder adds injury.** Rotted thatch from a roof standing many years is decomposing organic matter: it is the classic substrate for *Aspergillus* and for thermophilic actinomycetes, it is loaded with environmental bacteria, and like all soil and dust it carries *Clostridium tetani* spores, which survive drying and are not killed by sun. Dusting that over a denuded weeping surface — or, worse, spreading it on a mat and laying a child's whole raw body down on it, which is what the leaf instructs for the severe case — is a direct route for tetanus, for cellulitis and for sepsis into a wound with no barrier left. **The patient is a child, there was no tetanus immunisation, and the leaf gives no dose scaled to age or weight. This must not be prepared.** The modern handling of this surface is sterile non-adherent dressing, fluid, warmth and systemic antibiotics for established infection; nothing taken off a roof belongs on it. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.