Formulas · External Application 外用 · Jikji (直指)

Welling Spring Paste

Yongcheon-go

한글 용천고 · Pinyin Yong Quan Gao

涌泉膏

The chapter heading and the chapter's own list of formulas both print this name with 涌, as transcribed and as printed above; the name is more usually written 湧泉膏, and the site id follows the usual spelling. 去毒焙, the poison removed and then dry-roasted, means the head, feet and wings taken off before roasting. 准瘡口處 is the transcription's spelling for setting the dot true over the opening. The transcription prints 癕 and 為; 癰 and 爲 are printed above.

Composition 構成

Banmyo Ban Mao
斑猫 반묘 · Blister Beetle

—
Chief 君

去毒焙, the poison parts removed and dry-roasted · cantharidin, a blistering agent
Daesan Da Suan
大蒜 대산 · Garlic

—
Envoy 使

蒜膏, garlic paste, to work the powder into a dot the size of a small bean

Total 0 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

A garlic paste set in the middle of a plaster and laid exactly over the mouth of the sore
Dotted on a soft swelling whose head will not break
Also for a sore already broken whose head is swollen hard with no pus coming
Taken off the moment the pus runs

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

癰疽軟而瘡頭不破 — the swelling soft and its head unbroken
已破而瘡頭腫結無膿 — broken, but the head swollen hard and yielding no pus

Biomedical correlates

Abscess that will not point
Indurated non-draining wound

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治癰疽軟而瘡頭不破, 或已破而瘡頭腫結無膿者. 斑猫(去毒焙). 右爲末, 硏和蒜膏如小豆許, 點在膏藥中, 准瘡口處貼之. 少頃膿出, 卽去藥. 《直指》

Translation

Treats an abscess that is soft but whose head will not break, or one already broken whose head is swollen hard and yields no pus. Blister beetle, the poison parts removed and dry-roasted. Powder it, grind it together with garlic paste into a dot the size of a small bean, set the dot in the middle of a medicated plaster, and stick the plaster on so the dot lies exactly over the mouth of the sore. In a little while the pus comes; take the medicine off at once. — Jikji 直指 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

One drug and a delivery system, and the delivery system is the interesting part. The blister beetle powder is worked into garlic paste, the paste is made into a single dot the size of a small bean, and the dot is set in the centre of a plaster so that it sits over the mouth of the sore and nowhere else. That is dose control by geometry: the caustic reaches the one spot that has to open and the plaster protects the skin around it. The indication splits in two. A soft swelling that will not come to a head is a collection under skin too thick to rupture. A sore already broken whose head is swollen and hard with nothing coming out is worse — a cavity that has sealed over at the top while still filling underneath — and that is the case the chapter keeps returning to in this section. 少頃膿出, 卽去藥, off the moment the pus runs, is again the timing instruction. **Blister beetle is cantharidin, a blistering agent and renal toxin, and this is a caustic applied to broken skin; it must not be prepared.** A sealed, non-draining abscess cavity is treated by reopening and packing it, which is a procedure, not a plaster. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.