Realgar Paste (Children)

Unghwang-go

한글 웅황고 · Pinyin Xiong Huang Gao

雄黃膏

The leaf head and the body both write 䧺黃膏; 䧺 is on the project's variant-glyph list for 雄 and folds in the normalization table, so the name is printed 雄黃膏 and the id reads from that. A collation note 䧺 : 雄 stands at the foot of the following page, inside the 痰涎喘嗽 section prose, and the nearest 䧺 before it is the one in this leaf; it records the same correction and needs no further note. The transcription writes 半皀子大 with 皀, which the project's table does not fold and which is kept as transcribed, although the corpus prints 皂子 elsewhere. A formula of this name is already registered in the Sores chapter from the Jikji — an ointment of hair ash, beeswax, realgar, sulphur and sesame oil laid on a cold fistula — and shares only the realgar with this leaf; they are homonyms and this one takes the chapter tail. The radish-root water and vinegar carry a stated volume and are boiled to dryness with the realgar, so they are entered with prep and no weight; the refined honey is the body of the paste and, following corpus practice, is not entered as an ingredient. This leaf is also the 䧺黃膏 the section prose of 1.44 cites for 傷風.

Composition 構成

Hansuseok Han Shui Shi
寒水石 한수석 · Glauberite

20 g
Chief 君
Unghwang Xiong Huang
雄黃 웅황 · Realgar

—
Chief 君

小棗大, the bulk of a small jujube, ground · realgar, arsenic sulfide · toxic
Mangcho Mang Xiao
芒硝 망초 · Mirabilite

12 g
Deputy 臣

甜硝
Jusa Zhu Sha
朱砂 주사 · Cinnabar (toxic)

2 g
Assistant 佐

cinnabar, mercuric sulfide · toxic
Yongnoe Long Nao
龍腦 용뇌 · Borneol

1 g
Assistant 佐

一字
Nabok Luo Bo
蘿蔔 나복 · Radish

—
Assistant 佐

蘿葍根水, radish-root water, one large cup with the vinegar, boiled until gone
Cho Cu
醋 초 · Vinegar

—
Assistant 佐

醋, vinegar, one large cup with the radish-root water, boiled until gone
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

12 g
Envoy 使

powdered

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 3 ingredients 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 a wind injury with warm vigorous fever and a craving to drink
Ground even and worked up with refined honey into a soft paste, let down in a mint decoction, half a soap-bean's bulk to a dose

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

傷風 with 溫壯熱 — a wind injury with warm vigorous fever
引飮 — the child pulling at drink

Biomedical correlates

Febrile upper respiratory infection in a child with thirst

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治傷風溫壯熱引飮. 寒水石五錢, 甜硝ㆍ甘草末各三錢, 龍腦一字, 朱砂五分, 雄黃(小棗大)硏, 蘿葍根水並醋一大盞, 煮令盡. 右硏勻, 煉蜜成膏, 薄荷湯化下半皀子大. 《錢乙》

Translation

Treats a wind injury with warm vigorous fever and a craving to drink. Calcitum 5 don; mirabilite and powdered licorice, 3 don each; borneol 1 ja; cinnabar 5 fun; realgar the bulk of a small jujube, ground — boil it in one large cup of radish-root water together with vinegar until the liquid is gone. Grind the above evenly and work it up with refined honey into a paste; let it down in a mint decoction, half a soap-bean's bulk to a dose. — Jeoneul 錢乙 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

A 膏 in name but a soft electuary in use: five cooling and aromatic drugs worked up with honey and taken by mouth in mint water, not laid on the skin. 寒水石 and 甜硝 carry the cooling, 龍腦 the aromatic opening, and the realgar is boiled first in radish-root water and vinegar — a processing step that is doing real chemistry, since acid attacks arsenic sulfide and makes more of the arsenic soluble, which is the opposite of what anyone would want. 溫壯 is the chapter's name for a steady warm fever in a child, and 引飮 — the child pulling at drink — is the detail worth keeping, because a thirsty child who is drinking is a reassuring sign and a child who will not drink is not. Most such fevers are viral and resolve on their own; antipyretics treat discomfort rather than the illness and do not prevent febrile seizures, and the signs that matter are how the child looks and breathes. See the chapter prose at 1.41 for the frame. **Contains realgar, which is arsenic sulfide. Arsenic is a cumulative poison and a carcinogen; acute poisoning causes vomiting, profuse diarrhoea, collapse and death, and chronic exposure damages skin, nerves, liver and marrow. The dose here is given as the bulk of a small jujube, and the vinegar boil makes more of it soluble than the raw mineral would be. The patient is a child, and the text gives no dose by weight anywhere.** **It also contains cinnabar. The full statement on mercury in this chapter is on `jinsa-go-soa`; read it there. Arsenic and mercury in one paste given to a febrile infant is the most dangerous preparation in this batch. This must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.