Open the Heart Decoction

The one drinkable formula in the section, and the one with nothing hazardous in it: forsythia, akebia, dianthus, gardenia kernel, scutellaria and licorice at 4 pun each — a very small dose, properly scaled to the patient — boiled up with rush pith and ophiopogon. It is a mild heat-clearing, urine-opening decoction of the kind the tradition gives children, and the leaf's own statement of what it does, 淸心火ㆍ通小便ㆍ退潮熱, is exactly what that combination would be expected to do. **There is nothing in this formula that needs a warning, and saying so matters: the warnings on the neighbouring leaves are not boilerplate.** 旋螺風 is the navel swollen and protruding like a whorled snail shell. Two different things look like that in a newborn. One is umbilical hernia, which is common, painless, and resolves by itself in the great majority of children — nothing is needed. The other is what this leaf actually describes, 赤腫而痛, red and swollen and painful: that is omphalitis, infection of the umbilical stump and the skin around it, and it is an emergency. Omphalitis spreads to the abdominal wall, the portal vein and the bloodstream, and it is the doorway to the neonatal tetanus and neonatal sepsis that the two sections above this one describe. A gentle decoction will not touch it; intravenous antibiotics will. For cord care and what actually prevents this, see the note on `heolcho-san-soa`. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.