Formulas · Calm the Spirit 安神 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Realgar and Cinnabar Powder

Ungju-san

한글 웅주산 · Pinyin Xiong Zhu San

雄朱散

The 鬼魘 prose above the leaf prescribes it by name — 不急救則死, 宜用雄朱散 — and the same section gives 雄黃末 alone, blown into the nose or taken in wine, from the 本草. The transcription writes 黄 for 黃 in 牛黄 and 雄黄; the standard form is printed.

Composition 構成

Uhwang Niu Huang
牛黃 우황 · Cattle Gallstone

4 g
Chief 君

牛黃一錢 — ox gallstone, 1 don
Unghwang Xiong Huang
雄黃 웅황 · Realgar

4 g
Chief 君

雄黃一錢 — realgar, arsenic sulfide, 1 don
Jusa Zhu Sha
朱砂 주사 · Cinnabar (toxic)

2 g
Deputy 臣

朱砂五分 — cinnabar, mercuric sulfide, 5 pun
Ju Jiu
酒 주 · Wine

—
Envoy 使

酒 — wine, to stir the second 1-don portion into

Total 10 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 the night-pinning, where the sleeper is held down by what the book reads as a ghost
One don burnt under the bed, the next don stirred into wine and poured in

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

鬼魘 — the night-pinning, the sleeper unable to wake, making a choking sound
鬼魘鬼打 — the night-pinning and the ghost-strike, in a lodging-house or a long-empty cold room
久不得寤, 乃至氣絶 — long unable to wake, and so to the breath failing

Biomedical correlates

Sleep paralysis with hypnagogic hallucination
Night terror and confusional arousal
Nocturnal seizure or respiratory event mistaken for possession

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治鬼魘. 牛黃ㆍ雄黃各一錢, 朱砂五分. 右爲末, 每挑一錢, 於床下燒之, 次挑一錢, 以酒調灌. 《入門》

Translation

Treats the night-pinning. Ox gallstone and realgar 1 don each, cinnabar 5 pun. Powder them; take up 1 don at a time and burn it under the bed, then take up a further 1 don, stir it into wine and pour it into the mouth. — Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Gugeup)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Three minerals, one burnt and one swallowed. The burning half is the older idea — a fumigation under the bed to drive off what is holding the sleeper down — and the swallowed half is realgar and cinnabar in wine, the book's standard pair for settling a spirit that has been frightened loose. What the chapter is describing is sleep paralysis. The 鬼魘 passage is a good clinical description of it: the sleeper's awareness has returned but the body has not moved yet, there is a sense of being held, and a bystander hears 吃吃作聲, a choking sound. This is REM atonia persisting a few seconds into waking, it is common, and it is harmless. The chapter's own advice is better than its formula — do not bring a light up to the sleeper's face, do not shout close by, wake them gently — and the modern account of why it happens, and the reassurance that nothing is wrong, is most of the treatment. Burning realgar is worse than swallowing it. Heated, arsenic disulfide oxidises to arsenic trioxide, which sublimes and is inhaled by everyone in the room, including whoever is tending the patient; this is the classic route of arsenic poisoning from mineral smoke. And the swallowed portion is poured into the mouth of someone the text says may be unrousable — a patient with no gag reflex, for whom liquid in the mouth means liquid in the lungs. The airway comes first. **Contains realgar, which is arsenic sulfide, and cinnabar, which is mercuric sulfide. Burning realgar releases arsenic trioxide as a fume that is inhaled. This must not be prepared or taken.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.