Formulas · External Application 外用 · Uihak Gangmok (醫學綱目)

Grow the Sinew Powder

Saenggeun-san

한글 생근산 · Pinyin Sheng Jin San

生筋散

The transcription opens its source marker one character early, so that 片貼之 is pulled inside the brackets with the label: 作≪片貼之 ○綱目≫. The phrase is the end of the application instruction and is body text, not an interlinear note, but it is marked here as the 細註 the transcription makes of it, following `jingyeong-hwan`, where the transcription's ≪五六丸○正傳≫ is printed as <span class='sochu'>五六丸</span>. `bg.SRCFIX` collects fourteen other places where the opening ≪ has slipped forward in this way and this one is not among them, so the correction cannot be applied on the transcription side. 木鼈子 and 萆麻子 are printed as the transcription and the corpus majority both write them.

Composition 構成

Mokbyeolja Mu Bie Zi
木鼈子 목별자 · Momordica Seed (toxic)

—
Chief 君

木鼈子, three pieces (三箇), husked · toxic
Pimaja Bi Ma Zi
萆麻子 피마자 · Castor Bean (toxic)

—
Chief 君

萆麻子, thirty grains (三十粒), husked · castor bean, contains ricin, toxic

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 2 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

Applied externally for head and neck softness, as the outer half of the treatment Geongol-san is the inner half of
Momordica seed and castor bean, husked and ground together
The child's head is lifted and the nape rubbed until it is hot, then the paste is made into a flat piece and stuck on

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

頭軟ㆍ項軟 — head and neck soft, treated with Geongol-san by mouth and this powder laid on

Biomedical correlates

Infantile hypotonia — head lag, treated topically

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

外貼之. 木鼈子三箇, 萆麻子三十粒, 俱去殼. 右硏勻, 先抱起兒頭, 摩項上令熱, 作<span class='sochu'>片貼之</span>. 《綱目》

Translation

Applied externally. Momordica seed, three pieces; castor beans, thirty grains; both husked. Grind them together evenly; first lift the child's head up, rub the nape until it is hot — and make it into a flat piece and stick it on. — Gangmok 綱目 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The outer half of the pair: 通用健骨散, 外貼生筋散 — Geongol-san for general use, Saenggeun-san stuck on outside. Three momordica seeds and thirty castor beans, husked and ground to a paste. The procedure is specific and rather careful: the child's head is lifted and held, the nape is rubbed until it is warm, and the paste is pressed on as a flat piece. Rubbing a floppy child's neck is at worst harmless and the holding and handling may be the most useful thing in the leaf. **Contains castor bean (萆麻子) and momordica seed (木鼈子), both toxic, in a preparation laid on the back of an infant's neck, and the text gives no dose by weight here — the drugs are counted out as three seeds and thirty grains. This must not be prepared.** The castor bean holds **ricin**, which is lethal in minute amounts if the seed is chewed or swallowed; a paste on the neck of a baby who will be carried, who will turn its head and who may be handled by other children is a paste that can reach a mouth. Momordica seed is likewise toxic by mouth. Both can irritate skin, and infant skin is thin and absorbs more than an adult's. Nothing applied to the neck changes muscle tone. A child who cannot hold its head up needs the cause found: the floppy infant against the stiff one is the first distinction to establish, and behind the floppy one are cerebral palsy, **congenital hypothyroidism** — found on the newborn blood-spot screen, fully treatable with thyroxine, irreversible if missed — spinal muscular atrophy, and **rickets**. The formula is named for sinew and its companion for bone, and that instinct is partly right: the vitamin D deficiency reading is set out with the 解顱 leaves of 1.49, and the same deficiency lies behind 1.52 髮不生齒不生 and 1.53 龜背龜胷. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.