Formulas · Tonify Qi 補氣 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Water Iris Pill

Suji-hwan

한글 수지환 · Pinyin Shui Zhi Wan

水芝丸

The pig's stomach is the vessel the lotus seed is cooked in rather than a weighed ingredient; the Bogam has no separate herb entry for it, and it is entered here against 牛肚 as elsewhere in this database.

Composition 構成

Yeonjayuk Lian Zi
蓮子肉 연자육 · Lotus Seed

640 g
Chief 君

蓮肉一斤, the flesh of the lotus seed
Jeodu Zhu Du
猪肚 저두 · Pig's Stomach

—
Envoy 使

one pig's stomach; the lotus seed is steeped in it and boiled soft

Total 640 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

Supplements all the vacuities and fills out the centre
Cooks the lotus seed inside the organ it is meant to feed

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

All vacuity patterns with a depleted centre
Vacuity taxation with poor appetite and wasting

Biomedical correlates

Convalescence after prolonged illness
Malnutrition with weight loss

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

蓮實, 補諸虛實中. 蓮肉一斤, 入猪肚內蒸爛, 或水煮至爛, 擣丸梧子大, 酒下百丸. 名曰水芝丸. 《入門》

Translation

Lotus seed supplements all the vacuities and fills out the centre. The flesh of the lotus seed, 1 geun, packed into a pig's stomach and steamed soft, or boiled in water until soft, pounded into pills the size of paulownia seeds; take a hundred pills down with wine. It is called Suji-hwan. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Heoro)

Clinical commentary 臨床

水芝, the water sprout, is an old name for the lotus, and the pill is the one named preparation in the Vacuity Taxation chapter's simples. The method is the chapter's favourite trick: cook the drug inside the organ it is meant to feed, so that a pound of lotus seed steamed in a pig's stomach reaches the stomach. What the patient actually ate was a starchy, astringent, gently nourishing pill, which for someone wasted and loose in the bowels is a reasonable thing to give. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.