Formulas · External Application 外用 · Uibang Yuchwi (醫方類聚)

Washing Medicine for Sores Over the Whole Body

Se-yak

한글 세약 · Pinyin Xi Yao

洗藥

The leaf head is 洗藥, washing medicine, which is a form rather than a proper name; the id follows the corpus pattern for 外敷藥, 圍藥 and 澡洗藥 and takes the hyphen before 藥. This is the first of the two external medicines that Mapung-hwan hands the patient on to — 仍用後藥熏洗糝付 — and the 浴法 leaf that follows in the chapter is a separate five-branch bath.

Composition 構成

Jigolpi Di Gu Pi
地骨皮 지골피 · Lycium Root Bark

80 g
Chief 君

地骨皮二兩
Gosam Ku Shen
苦參 고삼 · Sophora Root

80 g
Chief 君

苦參二兩
Hyeonggae Jing Jie
荊芥 형개 · Schizonepeta

80 g
Deputy 臣

荊芥二兩
Sesin Xi Xin
細辛 세신 · Asarum

80 g
Assistant 佐

細辛二兩 — in quantity

Total 320 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts.

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

A four-drug decoction poured into a great tub for the patient to sit in
Bathes, fumigates and washes the whole body
Bleeding over the whole surface is taken as the sign that it has worked
Used after Mapung-hwan, with Bu-yak dusted on afterwards

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

滿身瘡爛 — sores ulcerated over the whole body
大風瘡 — the great wind sore

Biomedical correlates

Widespread ulceration in Hansen's disease — historical
Generalised ulcerated dermatitis

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治滿身瘡爛. 地骨皮ㆍ荊芥ㆍ苦參ㆍ細辛各二兩. 右剉, 以河水煎, 用大桶盛, 浸浴熏洗, 通身出血爲效. 《類聚》

Translation

Treats sores ulcerated over the whole body. Lycium root bark, schizonepeta, sophora root and asarum, 2 nyang each. Cut the above and decoct in river water; pour it into a great tub, and have the patient soak and bathe in it, fumigating and washing. Bleeding over the whole body is the sign that it has worked. — Yuchwi 類聚 (Donguibogam · Jechang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Four drugs, two nyang each, boiled in river water and poured into a tub large enough to sit in. Lycium root bark and sophora root cool and dry the surface, schizonepeta moves the wind out through the skin, and asarum is the one that stings. The patient soaks and steams in it, and the endpoint named is 通身出血, bleeding over the whole body, which is a description of a hot caustic wash on skin that has already broken down. It belongs with Bu-yak in the leaf below: the wash first, the powder dusted on after. **Contains asarum in quantity.** Asarum root carries aristolochic acid, which is nephrotoxic and carcinogenic, and applied over a whole body of broken skin the absorption is not trivial. The endpoint itself is the warning — deliberately raising bleeding across extensive ulceration invites sepsis, and in a patient with anaesthetic leprous skin the scalding risk is unmanaged. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.