Formulas · External Application 外用 · Gogeum Uigam (古今醫鑑)

Probing for Life Powder

Tamsaeng-san

한글 탐생산 · Pinyin Tan Sheng San

探生散

The transcription writes 䧺 for 雄, 為 for 爲 and 鍳 for 鑑; the standard forms are printed. A collation note reading 䧺 : 雄(First Edition) sits two leaves below, at the foot of 至聖保命丹; the character it annotates is not in that leaf but in this one and in 牛黃抱龍丸, and it is a plain glyph variant already covered by the corpus normalisation. It is registered in the `external` category because the powder is insufflated rather than swallowed.

Composition 構成

Unghwang Xiong Huang
雄黃 웅황 · Realgar

4 g
Chief 君

雄黃, 1 don · realgar, arsenic sulfide, toxic
Moryak Mo Yao
沒藥 몰약 · Myrrh

4 g
Chief 君

1 don
Yuhyang Ru Xiang
乳香 유향 · Frankincense

2 g
Deputy 臣

5 fun
Sahyang She Xiang
麝香 사향 · Musk (prohibited)

1 g
Assistant 佐

one ja (一字) · musk, from a CITES Appendix I deer

Total 11 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

Used in acute or chronic fright wind when no other medicine has answered
Blown into the nose not to treat but to decide whether the child will live or die
A little of the powder insufflated; if tears and nasal mucus both come out, the child can be treated

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

急慢驚風, 諸藥不效 — either kind of fright wind, with every medicine already tried and failed
定其死生 — to settle whether the child lives or dies

Biomedical correlates

Assessment of brainstem reflexes and level of consciousness in an unresponsive child
The depth of coma as a prognostic sign

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治急慢驚風, 諸藥不效, 用此吹鼻, 定其死生. 雄黃ㆍ沒藥各一錢, 乳香五分, 麝香一字. 右爲末, 吹少許入鼻, 如眼淚ㆍ鼻涕俱出者可治. 《醫鑑》

Translation

For acute and chronic fright wind when no medicine has had any effect: use this blown into the nose to settle whether the child will live or die. Realgar and myrrh, 1 don each; frankincense, 5 fun; musk, one ja. Powder the above and blow a little into the nose. If tears and nasal mucus both come out, the child can be treated. — Uigam 醫鑑 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Not a treatment. Four aromatics and a mineral, powdered and puffed up the nose of a child who has stopped responding to anything, to see whether the nose and eyes still run. If they do, the text says, the child can be treated; if they do not, the implication is plain. As a test it is a crude but genuine one, and it is worth being exact about why. An irritant in the nostril provokes tearing and nasal secretion through the trigeminal and facial nerves and the brainstem reflex arc between them. A child who still mounts that response has brainstem function and some depth of reserve; a child who does not is deeply unconscious. Modern paediatric assessment measures the same thing with the pupils, the gag and cough, and the response to pain, and scores it. The grim part is what the answer was used for: in 1613 a positive test meant more of the chapter's mercury, and a negative one meant the family was told to stop. A nasal irritant is also not a neutral act in a child whose airway is already compromised, and powder blown into the nose of an unconscious child can be aspirated. **This powder contains 雄黃, realgar, which is arsenic sulfide — a cumulative poison and a carcinogen — at the largest weight in the formula, and 麝香, musk, taken from a CITES Appendix I deer, whose trade this tradition drove. The patient is a child and the text gives no dose by weight anywhere; the dose is ‘a little’ blown up the nose. This must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.