Toxin-Washing Wash

The plainest wash in the section: four drugs at an even 2 don 5 fun, decocted, and used warm twice a day on any sore or swelling. 苦參 is the working drug — bitter, cold, and used throughout the external chapters for itching, weeping and sores — with 防風 for the surface, 露蜂房 for the sore itself and 甘草 to take the edge off. Nothing is taken by mouth. 湯洗一切瘡腫 is the whole indication, and the generality is the point: unlike 猪蹄湯 and 解毒湯, which are pitched at particular stages of an abscess, this one is not, so it serves as the section's everyday wash and the one a 精義 compiler would hand over without further questions. Washing a suppurating wound twice a day is reasonable practice, and the principle has not changed. What has changed is the irrigant: a decoction cooled on a stove is not sterile, and warm plant liquid poured into an open wound can carry organisms into it, so sterile saline has replaced it. 苦參 does have genuine antimicrobial and antipruritic activity, which is presumably why this particular wash lasted. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.