Formulas · Clear Heat 淸熱 · Uihak Jeongjeon (醫學正傳)

Dragon and Phoenix Paste

Yongbong-go

한글 용봉고 · Pinyin Long Feng Gao

龍鳳膏

Composition 構成

Gyeja Ji Zi
雞子 계자 · Hen's Egg

—
Chief 君

烏雞卵, one black hen's egg
Jiryong Di Long
地龍 지룡 · Earthworm

—
Deputy 臣

one live earthworm, thin and small; removed before the egg is eaten

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 2 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

Eaten once a year at the beginning of spring by a well child, to prevent the pox for life
Eaten once or twice when pox is known to be going about

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Prophylaxis against pox and rash (不出痘疹)
Pox going about the neighbourhood (鄕隣有此證流行)

Biomedical correlates

Smallpox — attempted prophylaxis, historical

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

烏雞卵一箇, 地龍細小活者一條. 右雞卵開一小竅, 入地龍在內, 皮紙糊其竅, 飯鍋上蒸熟, 去地龍, 與兒食之. 每歲立春日食一枚, 終身不出痘疹. 覺鄕隣有此證流行, 食一二枚亦效. 《正傳》

Translation

One black hen's egg; one live earthworm, thin and small. Open a small hole in the egg, put the earthworm inside, paste the hole over with bark paper, and steam it done on top of the rice pot; remove the earthworm and give the egg to the child to eat. Eaten once on the first day of spring every year, the pox and rash will never come out for the whole of life. Where one becomes aware that this disease is going about the neighbourhood, eating one or two is also effective. — Jeongjeon 正傳 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The two names are the two materials: the dragon is the earthworm, the phoenix the black hen's egg. A live worm is sealed into the egg through a hole stopped with bark paper, the egg is steamed on the rice pot, the worm is taken out again, and the child eats the egg. Since the worm is discarded, what the child actually swallows is a steamed egg, and the drug has been reduced to a flavouring the preparation then removes. It is harmless and it prevented nothing. The calendar is the interesting part — 立春, the first day of spring, once a year for life, which places the remedy in the same register as the new-year washing and the hundredfold invocation elsewhere in this section rather than in the register of the day-by-day staging a few sections on. The physician who wrote both did not experience them as different kinds of knowledge. For what did end smallpox, see samdu-eum. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.