Rhinoceros Horn Resolve Toxin Beverage for the Pox

Seogaksodok-eum

한글 서각소독음 (소아) · Pinyin Xi Jiao Xiao Du Yin

犀角消毒飮

A 犀角消毒飮 was already registered from the Skin chapter (seogaksodok-eum) and this leaf is a different prescription, so it takes the chapter tail. The registered one is from the 丹心, treats 丹毒 and the 癍疹 and 癮疹 rashes, and has five drugs: 鼠粘子四錢, 荊芥 and 防風各二錢, 甘草一錢, and 犀角一錢半 ground separately in water with the juice stirred in at the end. This leaf is from the 入門, treats the pox, and has six drugs — it adds 黃芩 at 一錢, which the other does not contain at all — at weights that differ throughout: 鼠粘子 at 二錢 rather than 四錢, 荊芥穗 and 防風 at 一錢 rather than 二錢, 甘草 at 五分 rather than 一錢, and the horn as 犀角屑, shavings at 五分 decocted with the other drugs rather than 一錢半 ground cold in water and added at the end. The preparation of the horn is the sharpest difference: the two leaves use it in two different ways. 䑕 is printed 鼠 as the variant-glyph table requires.

Composition 構成

Ubangja Niu Bang Zi
牛蒡子 우방자 · Burdock Seed

8 g
Chief 君

鼠粘子, 2 don
Seogak Xi Jiao
犀角 서각 · Rhinoceros Horn (prohibited)

2 g
Chief 君

犀角屑, horn shavings, 5 pun, decocted with the rest · CITES Appendix I, prohibited
Hyeonggae Jing Jie
荊芥 형개 · Schizonepeta

4 g
Deputy 臣

荊芥穗, the spikes, 1 don
Bangpung Fang Feng
防風 방풍 · Siler

4 g
Deputy 臣

1 don
Hwanggeum Huang Qin
黃芩 황금 · Scutellaria

4 g
Deputy 臣

1 don
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

2 g
Envoy 使

5 pun

Total 24 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

Treats pox and rash that cannot come through freely
Treats the case already erupted in which the fever has still not resolved
Taken at once as a single packet

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

痘疹未能快透 — the pox and rash unable to break through
已出熱尙未解 — the eruption out but the fever not settling

Biomedical correlates

Smallpox, eruptive stage, with fever persisting after the rash appears

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治痘疹未能快透, 或已出熱尙未解, 急服此藥. 鼠粘子二錢, 荊芥穗ㆍ防風ㆍ黃芩各一錢, 犀角屑ㆍ甘草各五分. 右剉, 作一貼, 水煎服. 《入門》

Translation

Treats pox and rash that cannot break through freely, or the case in which they are already out but the fever has still not resolved; take this medicine at once. Burdock seed, 2 don; schizonepeta spikes, siler and scutellaria, 1 don each; rhinoceros horn shavings and licorice, 5 pun each. Cut up the above, make one packet, decoct in water and take. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Six drugs, with burdock seed at double and the horn and licorice at a quarter of the leading weight. Burdock seed, schizonepeta spikes and siler are the outthrusting set; scutellaria is added here for the fever that has not settled, and the horn is the chapter's drug for heat in the blood. **犀角 is rhinoceros horn, and it needs saying on its own. The horn is keratin — the same structural protein as hair, hoof and fingernail — and it has no pharmacological action of any kind: controlled work has shown nothing, and there is no mechanism by which a shaving of boiled nail could affect a viral exanthem or a fever. All five surviving rhinoceros species are listed on CITES Appendix I, international trade in the horn is prohibited, and the demand created by this medical tradition is the reason they are endangered; three of the five are critically endangered and the northern white rhinoceros is functionally extinct. Animals are still killed for this. It must not be used, and water buffalo horn, which is the substitute the pharmacopoeias name, is the same inert keratin.** The entry is kept because the text says what it says, not because the drug is usable. The second indication is the better observation. 已出熱尙未解 — the eruption is out but the fever has not come down. **In smallpox, the fever of the prodrome characteristically fell as the rash appeared and then rose again only when the lesions suppurated; a fever that did not settle as the eruption came out was a genuinely bad sign**, marking either an overwhelming viral load or the flat and haemorrhagic forms that did not follow the ordinary course at all. The chapter has put its finger on a real inflection in the natural history, and read it correctly as grave. 急服此藥 — take this medicine at once — is the right urgency attached to the wrong instrument. On smallpox having no treatment at all, see sodok-eum-soa. **The patient is a child with smallpox, and the leaf gives drug weights but no dose scaled to the child's age or weight.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.