Formulas · External Application 外用 · Gogeum Uigam (古今醫鑑)

Three Spirits Paste

Samsin-go

한글 삼신고 · Pinyin San Shen Gao

三神膏

Composition 構成

Pimaja Bi Ma Zi
萆麻子 피마자 · Castor Bean (toxic)

—
Chief 君

去殼 — shelled, 49 seeds · toxic
Cho Cu
醋 초 · Vinegar

—
Deputy 臣

陳醋 — aged vinegar, 1 and a half bowls
Yeom Yan
鹽 염 · Salt

—
Envoy 使

a pinch

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

Treats 癰疽 and 發背 — smeared over the swelling with the crown left bare
Disperses what has not yet made pus and brings out the pus of what has

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

癰疽 and 發背, before or after pus has formed
A swelling that must either go down or be made to open

Biomedical correlates

Abscess and carbuncle — topical
Suppurative soft-tissue infection — topical

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治癰疽發背. 萆麻子(去殼) 四十九枚, 陳醋一椀半, 鹽一撮. 右同入鍋中熬之, 槐枝攪成膏. 先以米泔洗瘡, 搽上, 留頂. 未成膿卽消, 已成膿卽出膿. 《醫鑑》

Translation

Treats abscesses and sinus abscesses and back eruptions. Castor seeds, shelled, 49 of them; aged vinegar 1 and a half bowls; salt a pinch. Put them together in a pan and boil them down, stirring with a locust twig until they come to a paste. First wash the sore with rice-washing water, then smear the paste on, leaving the crown of the swelling bare. What has not yet made pus will disperse; what has made pus will discharge it. — Uigam 醫鑑 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Three ingredients and a pan: castor seeds boiled down in vinegar with a pinch of salt until they thicken, stirred with a twig of Japanese pagoda tree. The twig and the pan are tools, not drugs. Castor seed is the whole of it — a soft oily mass that holds heat and stays wet on the skin. 留頂, leaving the crown bare, is the instruction worth keeping. The paste is laid in a ring and the apex of the swelling left open, so that the surrounding skin is held and softened while the one point where it will break is not sealed over. The chapter's encircling applications are built on the same thought. **Castor seed contains ricin and is toxic. This must not be prepared.** The paste is also laid on skin that is about to break, and the rice-washing water used to clean the sore is not sterile. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.