Formulas · Transform Dampness 化濕 · Gyeongheom (經驗)

Three Immortals Decoction

Samseon-tang

한글 삼선탕 · Pinyin San Xian Tang

三仙湯

A glyph-apparatus line pairing the reading of 於 with its first-edition form 扵 falls between 醋 and 糊 in the transcription, at the page turn; it is apparatus and not part of the text, and 醋糊 is continuous.

Composition 構成

Changchul Cang Zhu
蒼朮 창출 · Atractylodes Lancea

16 g
Chief 君
Saengjihwang Sheng Di Huang
生地黃 생지황 · Raw Rehmannia

8 g
Deputy 臣

as 乾地黃, the dried root
Useul Niu Xi
牛膝 우슬 · Achyranthes

4 g
Assistant 佐
Cho Cu
醋 초 · Vinegar

—
Envoy 使

vinegar paste, when it is made into pills
Ju Jiu
酒 주 · Wine

—
Envoy 使

wine, to send the pills down

Total 28 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

Treats the miasmic qi of mountain mists and the pestilence that goes round in season
Also made into pills with vinegar paste and taken with wine on an empty stomach

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Miasmic qi of mountain mists (山嵐瘴氣)
Pestilence going round in season (時行瘟疫)

Biomedical correlates

Miasmic epidemic illness, malarial fever among them
Seasonal epidemic febrile illness

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治山嵐瘴氣, 時行瘟疫. 蒼朮四錢, 乾地黃二錢, 牛膝一錢. 右剉, 作一貼, 水煎服. 或爲末, 醋糊和丸梧子大, 空心酒下三五十丸. 《經驗》

Translation

Treats the miasmic qi of mountain mists and the pestilence that goes round in season. Atractylodes lancea 4 don; dried rehmannia 2 don; achyranthes 1 don. Cut the above up, make one packet and decoct in water. Or else powder them, bind with vinegar paste into pills the size of a paulownia seed, and take thirty to fifty pills with wine on an empty stomach. — Gyeongheom 經驗 (Donguibogam · On)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Three drugs: four don of atractylodes lancea, two of dried rehmannia, one of achyranthes. The atractylodes is the whole argument — it is the Bogam's standing answer to damp and to miasma, and the two others are there to keep a drying formula from emptying the fluids and to carry it downward. It appears with 太無神朮散 at the foot of the 瘴疫 section, where the illness is described as the poison of mountain mist and valley damp taken in through the nose and mouth and breaking out as malarial fever with chills and heat. A plain three-drug decoction with a pill form for keeping is a traveller's or a household's formula rather than a physician's, which fits a section about a regional illness that people had to live alongside. Among the fevers gathered here, malaria is the one a modern reader will recognise, and it needs modern antimalarial treatment. There is nothing hazardous in the three drugs themselves. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.