Coffin-Breaking Decoction

Pagwan-tang

한글 파관탕 · Pinyin Po Guan Tang

破棺湯

Composition 構成

Insi Ren Shi
人屎 인시 · Human Faeces

12 g
Chief 君

dried and burnt to retain its nature

Total 12 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

Drains fire toxin from the heart
Restores consciousness in heat mania

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Heat disease with mania and incoherent speech
Loss of consciousness from fire toxin

Biomedical correlates

Delirium in severe febrile illness
Hyperthermic coma

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治傷寒熱病, 發狂ㆍ心躁ㆍ言語不定ㆍ不省人事. 人屎乾者, 燒存性, 水漬飮汁一二盞, 卽甦. 或細硏如麪, 新汲水調下三錢亦可. 俗名野人乾水. 《本草》

Translation

Treats cold damage and heat disease with mania, agitation of the heart, incoherent speech and loss of consciousness. Dried human faeces, burnt so as to retain its nature, steeped in water and the liquid drunk, one or two cups, and the patient revives. Or it may be ground fine as flour and 3 don taken stirred into freshly drawn water. Commonly called <span class='sochu'>yain-geonsu</span> 野人乾水, wild man's dry water. — Boncho 本草 (Donguibogam · Han, lower)

Clinical commentary 臨床

**This is not a formula to prepare.** It is recorded here because it stands in the text, and because the name — breaking open the coffin — tells you what the Bogam thought it was for: the patient given up for dead. Faecal preparations are a real stratum of the materia medica for fire toxin and were used in epidemics well into the Qing, on the reasoning that the foulest substance draws out the foulest heat. They carry an obvious infectious risk and have no place in practice. For the pattern itself, the cooling purgatives and the Angong-type openers are what a modern clinician would reach for. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.