Fresh Ginger, Licorice and Platycodon Decoction

Saengganggamgil-tang

한글 생강감길탕 · Pinyin Sheng Jiang Gan Jie Tang

生薑甘桔湯

癕 is given above as 癰 and 膈 is printed as the transcription has it. The transcription reads 甘草上 where the preparation note belongs, and the collation note standing at the 014a/014b page boundary records 上 : 生(初刊本) — the 初刊本 reads 甘草生, raw licorice. The transcription's 上 is printed as the rule requires, parenthesised because the collation shows it occupies the preparation slot, and the drug is read as raw licorice; 上 there has no sense of its own and looks like a copying error for 生. The other 上 on the page, in 毒氣上衝, is not what the note annotates. 井水, well water, is the decoction medium and not an ingredient.

Composition 構成

Gilgyeong Jie Geng
桔梗 길경 · Platycodon

40 g
Chief 君

一兩
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

20 g
Deputy 臣

五錢, raw (the 初刊本 reading 生)
Saenggang Sheng Jiang
生薑 생강 · Fresh Ginger

20 g
Assistant 佐

五錢

Total 80 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

Opens the throat and diaphragm that the toxic qi of an abscess has surged up and blocked
Stops vomiting that will not leave off
Decocted in well water

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Toxic qi of an abscess surging upward (癰疽毒氣上衝)
Throat and diaphragm stopped and blocked (咽膈窒塞)
Vomiting that will not leave off (嘔吐不已)

Biomedical correlates

Intractable vomiting during a suppurative illness
Pharyngeal swelling and dysphagia in deep neck infection — historical framing

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治癰疽毒氣上衝, 咽膈窒塞, 嘔吐不已. 桔梗一兩, 甘草(上)ㆍ生薑各五錢. 右剉, 井水煎服. 《直指》

Translation

Treats an abscess whose toxic qi has surged upward, with the throat and diaphragm stopped and blocked and vomiting that will not leave off. Platycodon, 1 nyang; licorice (raw) and fresh ginger, 5 don each. Cut the above and decoct in well water, and take. — Jikji 直指 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Gamgil-tang, platycodon and licorice, with fresh ginger put in and the platycodon doubled — which is the Throat chapter's formula brought over and turned on a different problem. In the Throat chapter the pair opens a sore throat. Here the throat is only where the trouble shows: the leaf reads the blocked throat and diaphragm and the unstoppable vomiting as the abscess toxin surging upward, and treats the surge. Ginger at five don is the whole of the anti-emetic claim, and it is the part that holds up — gingerol has a measurable effect on nausea. Platycodon at a full nyang is doing the opening, and the well water is the chapter's quiet preference for a clean cold medium in a heat condition. Vomiting is one of the six subsections of 癰疽雜證, alongside vexing thirst, phlegm, chills and fever, pain and diarrhoea, and the section as a whole is the Bogam's account of what a serious infection does to the rest of the body. Persistent vomiting in a patient with an abscess is a genuine warning sign, usually of sepsis or of an obstruction, and the right response to it now is not a decoction. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.