Immortal's Formula Restore Life Drink

The best-known formula in the chapter and the one the method leaf names, with Naesohwangryeon-tang, for an inward pattern that should be dredged and conducted — 內證宜疏導 — with Cheongyeolsodok-eum for the lighter case. Against that stands the surface-dispersing pair, Hwangryeonsodok-san and Naetakganghwal-tang, and behind both stands the chapter's governing division: the 托裏 and 內托 formulas, which supplement a spent body with ginseng, astragalus and Korean angelica so the pus is thrust outward, against the 疏 and 利 formulas, which carry the toxin downward out of a repleted one. This leaf has rhubarb at 5 don, the largest single weight in the group, and no ginseng or astragalus at all, so it belongs squarely on the draining side even though its claim is 排膿, expelling pus. Two things make it distinctive. The first is the preparation: no water at all, only good wine in a sealed earthen jar, with more wine after the dose, the patient lying on the side to sleep, and iron vessels forbidden. The second is the instruction that the chief drug changes with the site — gleditsia thorn when the sore is on the back, angelica dahurica on the belly, honeysuckle on the limbs — which is a rare piece of explicit prescription-building in the Bogam, and it tells us the author thought of the formula as a frame rather than a fixed list. **Contains pangolin scale, which comes from an animal protected under CITES with all commercial trade prohibited.** The formula cannot be prepared as written. Honeysuckle, forsythia-class heat drugs, frankincense and myrrh carry the plausible part of it, but the claim that a drink opens an abscess does not survive contact with the clinic: a collection of pus is drained, and a spreading cellulitis is treated with antibiotics. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.