Formulas · Release the Exterior 解表 · Yeokro (易老)

Realgar Pill

Unghwang-hwan

한글 웅황환 · Pinyin Xiong Huang Wan

雄黃丸

鬼箭羽, the winged twig of Euonymus alatus, has no entry in the herb list and is left out of the ingredients above. 温 is given as 溫 and 呑 is printed in the form the corpus uses.

Composition 構成

Unghwang Xiong Huang
雄黃 웅황 · Realgar

40 g
Chief 君

realgar — arsenic sulfide, toxic
Jeoksodu Chi Xiao Dou
赤小豆 적소두 · Adzuki Bean

80 g
Deputy 臣

炒, stir-fried
Dansam Dan Shen
丹參 단삼 · Salvia

80 g
Deputy 臣
Wimo Wei Mao
衛矛 위모 · Winged Euonymus Twig

80 g
Assistant 佐

the winged bark of the twig
Bongmil Feng Mi
蜂蜜 봉밀 · Honey

—
Envoy 使

honey, as the binder

Total 280 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 pestilence and keeps the infection from passing between people
Five pills swallowed in warm water on an empty stomach each day
Said to allow sharing clothes and a bed with the sick without taking the illness

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Pestilence (瘟疫) with transmission to be prevented
Attendance on the sick at close quarters
A household in which the infection is already present

Biomedical correlates

Prevention of person-to-person transmission — historical prophylaxis
Epidemic febrile illness, contact prophylaxis

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治瘟疫, 令不相染. 雄黃一兩, 赤小豆(炒)ㆍ丹參ㆍ鬼箭羽各二兩. 右爲末, 蜜丸梧子大, 每日空心, 溫水呑下五丸, 可與病人同衣床, 亦不相傳染. 《易老》

Translation

Treats pestilence and keeps people from infecting one another. Realgar 1 nyang; adzuki bean (stir-fried), salvia and winged euonymus twig 2 nyang each. Powder the above and bind with honey into pills the size of a paulownia seed. Every day, on an empty stomach, swallow five pills down with warm water; then one may share clothes and a bed with the sick and still not take the infection from them. — Yeokro 易老 (Donguibogam · On)

Clinical commentary 臨床

A nyang of realgar against two nyang each of stir-fried adzuki bean, salvia and the winged twig of euonymus, honeyed into paulownia-seed pills, five a day on an empty stomach. The section it belongs to is 不傳染法, the method of not catching it, and the leaf before this one has realgar powder painted inside the nostrils for the same purpose; the Yeokro text simply says of this pill that it is the best of them. The claim is specific and worth reading closely: that one may share clothes and a bed with a sick person and not take the illness. This is a household nursing problem being answered with a daily tablet, and the three bulk drugs are there to carry the realgar and to spare the stomach, as the beans do in the arsenic formulas elsewhere in the Bogam. The reasoning is consistent, and the material is wrong. **Contains realgar, which is arsenic sulfide. Five pills a day for the length of an epidemic is a cumulative arsenic dose and this must not be prepared or taken.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.