Formulas · Tonify Yang 補陽 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Four Spirits Elixir

Sasin-dan

한글 사신단 · Pinyin Si Shen Dan

四神丹

The transcription prints 燒 in its variant form 焼 and writes the second 硏細 as 研細; both are normalised here to the corpus graph. 一伏時 is a full day and night. Not the Dansim formula registered as sasin-hwan-jeon, which shares only the first two graphs of the name.

Composition 構成

Yuhwang Liu Huang
硫黃 유황 · Sulphur

40 g
Chief 君

1 nyang · toxic
Unghwang Xiong Huang
雄黃 웅황 · Realgar

40 g
Deputy 臣

1 nyang · arsenic sulfide, toxic
Jahwang Ci Huang
雌黃 자황 · Orpiment

40 g
Deputy 臣

雌黃, 1 nyang · arsenic sulfide, toxic
Jusa Zhu Sha
朱砂 주사 · Cinnabar (toxic)

40 g
Assistant 佐

1 nyang · mercury sulfide, toxic
Nami Nuo Mi
糯米 나미 · Glutinous Rice

—
Envoy 使

a glutinous-rice dumpling worked into the pill paste

Total 160 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 1 ingredient 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

Supplements the true origin where it has gone vacuous and damaged
Restores the crossing of Water and Fire with four calcined minerals

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

True origin vacuous and damaged, the Yang Qi waning and scant (眞元虛損陽氣衰少)
Essence and marrow worn away by taxation (精髓耗傷)
Water and Fire failing to cross (水火不交)

Biomedical correlates

Chronic debility — historical mineral treatment
Sexual-function decline in depletion states

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

補眞元虛損, 陽氣衰少, 精髓耗傷, 水火不交. 雄黃ㆍ雌黃ㆍ硫黃ㆍ朱砂各一兩. 右硏細, 入磁盒內, 鹽泥固濟, 慢火燒煆一伏時, 取出硏細, 以糯米粽和丸如豆大, 每一粒, 空心, 新汲水呑下. 《入門》

Translation

Supplements the true origin gone vacuous and damaged, the Yang Qi waning and scant, the essence and marrow worn away, and Water and Fire failing to cross. Realgar, orpiment, sulphur and cinnabar, 1 nyang each. Grind them fine, put them in a porcelain box sealed with salted clay, and calcine over a slow fire for a full day and night; take them out, grind fine again, and bind with a glutinous-rice dumpling into pills the size of beans. One pill at a time, on an empty stomach, swallowed with newly drawn water. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Heoro)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Four minerals, a nyang each, sealed in a clay-luted porcelain box and burnt for a full day and night — this is alchemy rather than herbal medicine, and the Immun does not pretend otherwise. The dose is a single bean-sized pill on an empty stomach with freshly drawn water, which is the only cautious thing about the entry. The indication, 水火不交, Water and Fire failing to cross, is the chapter's standard reading of the exhausted patient, and the four spirits are chosen as the mineral counterparts of the two — sulphur and the two arsenics for fire, cinnabar for the heart it is meant to bring down. The calcination was understood to tame them. It does not. **Contains realgar and orpiment (arsenic sulfides) and cinnabar (mercury sulfide), all toxic. This must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.