Formulas · External Application 外用 · Uihak Jeongjeon (醫學正傳)

Divine Marvel Paste

Sini-go

한글 신이고 · Pinyin Shen Yi Gao

神異膏

This is the leaf 癰疽門上 points at. Its entry there — registered as sini-go, the id filled here — carries the indications and the chapter's own ranking of it (膏藥甚多, 效驗無出于此) but no composition, referring it away with the interlinear note 方見雜方; this leaf supplies the composition and closes that composition-less cross-reference. It is not the 神異膏 of 諸瘡門, registered as sini-go-jechang: that is a 得效 formula of 全蝎ㆍ皂角ㆍ巴豆ㆍ蛇床子ㆍ雄黃ㆍ輕粉ㆍ淸油ㆍ黃蠟 for 一切瘡疥, a scabies rub with no drug in common with this one. The 癰疽門 entry carries no source label; this leaf gives 《正傳》, so the source is entered as the Uihak Jeongjeon. 黄 is printed 黃 and 浄 as 淨 by the usual normalisations. A collation note 桒 : 桑(First Edition) sits inside this leaf, at the page boundary before [052a], but 桒 is not in this leaf — the character it annotates is 桒白皮 in the 雲母膏 leaf two leaves back, and it is a pure glyph variant already covered.

Composition 構成

Nobongbang Lu Feng Fang
露蜂房 노봉방 · Hornet's Nest

40 g
Chief 君

hornets' nest, 1 nyang
Haengin Xing Ren
杏仁 행인 · Apricot Kernel

40 g
Deputy 臣

1 nyang; fried in the oil until it blackens and then strained out
Hwanggi Huang Qi
黃芪 황기 · Astragalus

30 g
Deputy 臣

7 don 5 pun
Satoe She Tui
蛇蛻 사퇴 · Snake Slough

20 g
Assistant 佐

蛇退, snake slough, 5 don, washed clean in salt water
Hyeonsam Xuan Shen
玄參 현삼 · Scrophularia

20 g
Assistant 佐

5 don
Baldu Tou Fa
頭髮 발두 · Human Hair

—
Assistant 佐

亂髮, tangled human hair, an egg's bulk, rendered in the oil until it melts away — human-derived material
Cheongyu Qing You
淸油 청유 · Clear Sesame Oil

400 g
Envoy 使

香油, sesame oil, 10 nyang, the frying medium and the base
Hwangdan Huang Dan
黃丹 황단 · Red Lead (toxic)

200 g
Envoy 使

red lead, 5 nyang, stirred in over a slow fire to set the plaster · lead

Total 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

Treats 發背 and 癰疽 and every kind of malignant toxic sore and boil — laid on as a plaster
Treats toxic sores and boils of every kind

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

發背 and 癰疽
惡毒瘡癤 — malignant toxic sores and boils
諸般癰癤毒 — the toxin of every abscess and boil

Biomedical correlates

Abscess, carbuncle, furuncle — topical
Suppurative skin and soft-tissue infection — topical

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

露蜂房ㆍ杏仁各一兩, 黃芪七錢半, 蛇退(鹽水洗淨)ㆍ玄參各五錢, 亂髮雞子大, 香油十兩, 黃丹五兩. 右先將油及髮銚中熬, 候髮烊盡, 入杏仁, 候杏仁黑色, 綿濾去滓, 乃入黃芪ㆍ玄參熬一二時, 稍停入蜂房ㆍ蛇退, 攪熬至紫黑色, 又濾去滓, 慢火熬下黃丹, 急攪千餘轉, 滴水不散, 膏卽成矣. 磁器收貯用. 治諸般癰癤毒. 《正傳》

Translation

Hornets' nest and apricot kernel, 1 nyang each; astragalus 7 don 5 pun; snake slough (washed clean in salt water) and scrophularia, 5 don each; tangled hair, an egg's bulk; sesame oil 10 nyang; red lead 5 nyang. First put the oil and the hair in a pan and render them until the hair has melted quite away; put in the apricot kernel, and when the kernel has gone black strain the oil through cotton wool and discard the dregs. Then put in the astragalus and the scrophularia and render them one or two hours; pause a little, put in the hornets' nest and the snake slough, stir and render until the colour is purple-black, and strain off the dregs again. Over a slow fire add the red lead, stirring quickly a thousand turns and more; when a drop in water does not scatter, the paste is made. Store it in an earthenware vessel for use. It treats the toxin of every abscess and boil. — Jeongjeon 正傳 (Donguibogam · Japbang)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The plaster the 癰疽門 chapter itself ranks highest: 膏藥甚多, 效驗無出于此 — of all the many plasters, none is better proven. With the composition now in hand that verdict can be read against the thing itself, and what it is is a rendered oil plaster with five drugs and almost no mineral content beyond the lead that sets it. The staging is careful and the leaf is explicit about why: the hair goes in first and is rendered to nothing, the apricot kernel is fried until black and thrown out, the tough materials — the hornets' nest and the snake slough — go in last and are cooked to purple-black. Only what the oil has drawn out of them stays. Hornets' nest and snake slough are the signature pair of the 癰疽 plasters and the reason the formula is called 神異 rather than named for its drugs. Neither has any demonstrated action on an abscess. What the finished dressing does is what any occlusive plaster does: it stays put, keeps the surface warm and moist, and holds a wound closed while it granulates. **Contains red lead (黃丹), which is lead tetroxide.** The lead is not incidental — it is the agent that turns the oil into a plaster, and there is no version of the formula without it. For an ointment laid on an open sore the route that matters is absorption through broken skin, which has lost the barrier that keeps metals out; lead is a cumulative poison with no safe dose, and a plaster left on a suppurating 癰疽 for days is a sustained dose. **This must not be prepared.** A deep abscess needs drainage and antibiotics. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.