Formulas · Stabilize & Astringe 固澀 · Bomyeongjip (保命集)

Three Raw Ingredients Powder

Samsaeng-san

한글 삼생산 · Pinyin San Sheng San

三生散

蛇退 is the corpus form for 蛇蛻, the snake slough. The three drugs are given 各等分 with no weight, so none carries a gram figure; the 3 don is the dose of the finished powder.

Composition 構成

Nobongbang Lu Feng Fang
露蜂房 노봉방 · Hornet's Nest

—
Chief 君

equal parts, burnt with the nature preserved (燒存性)
Satoe She Tui
蛇蛻 사퇴 · Snake Slough

—
Deputy 臣

蛇退, equal parts, burnt with the nature preserved
Baldu Tou Fa
頭髮 발두 · Human Hair

—
Deputy 臣

亂髮, equal parts, burnt with the nature preserved · human material

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 3 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

Closes a bone abscess, or any mouth of a sore, that has long failed to heal — held to be marvellously proven
Three drugs burnt with their nature preserved and taken in warm wine on an empty stomach

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

附骨疽 and 瘡口久不合 — a bone abscess, and the mouth of a sore long failing to close
A chronic sinus or open wound that will not granulate

Biomedical correlates

Chronic osteomyelitis with a draining sinus
Chronic non-healing wound

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治附骨疽及瘡口久不合, 神驗. 露蜂房ㆍ蛇退ㆍ亂髮各等分, 燒存性, 爲末. 每取三錢, 溫酒調下, 空心. 《保命》

Translation

Treats a deep-rooted bone abscess, and the mouth of a sore long failing to close; marvellously proven. Hornet's nest, snake slough and tangled hair in equal parts, burnt with their nature preserved and powdered. Take 3 don at a time, stirred into warm wine, on an empty stomach. — Bomyeongjip 保命 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Three animal shed-things — a hornet's nest, a snake's cast skin, a mass of hair — burnt 燒存性, to charcoal but not to white ash, and taken by mouth in warm wine. The name counts them and calls them 生, raw, meaning unprocessed natural materials rather than uncalcined ones; the leaf itself then calcines all three, which is the usual way with this class of formula. It is worth noticing that this is an internal powder for an external problem. 平肌散 above it uses two of the same three drugs dusted into the sinus; this one sends them down the throat in wine for the same indication. The chapter does that repeatedly — it treats a sore that will not close as a failure of the interior to push it shut, so the same materials serve either way. The choice of sloughs and nests is sympathetic reasoning: things that an animal has shed and left whole are held to make flesh close over and leave a sound surface. **The three drugs are a wasp nest, a snake skin and human hair, charred and swallowed. Hair ash and charred animal material have no therapeutic action and carry contamination risk, and the hornet's nest can provoke an allergic reaction in anyone sensitised to vespid venom. This must not be prepared.** A sore over bone that will not close needs the reason found — retained dead bone, a foreign body, a deep collection — not a powder in wine. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.