寶鑑Bogam

Formulas · Clear Heat 淸熱 · Uihak Immun (醫學入門)

Gentian Pill

Yongdam-hwan

한글 용담환  ·  Pinyin Long Dan Wan

龍膽丸

This is not 龍膽元 (`yongdam-won`), the Gukbang pill for 熱疳 four leaves earlier in this same 1.38.16 疳瘡 section, which has only gentian, coptis, green tangerine peel and quisqualis; the two share the gentian, the coptis and the pig-bile binder, and the 丸/元 of the name is the only difference between them. Nor is it 龍膽散 (`yongdam-san`) or 龍膽湯 (`yongdam-tang-soa`). The transcription writes 紫蘓, normalized to 紫蘇, and 為 for 爲.

Composition 構成

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 12 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

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

  • 腦疳 — brain gan: sores and crusting on the head in a child with gan, the nose running and sore

Biomedical correlates

  • Scalp and facial sepsis — impetigo, tinea capitis, infected seborrhoeic crusting — in a malnourished child
  • Protein-energy malnutrition with skin breakdown

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治腦疳. 龍膽草ㆍ升麻ㆍ苦練根ㆍ防風ㆍ赤茯苓ㆍ蘆薈ㆍ油髮灰ㆍ靑黛ㆍ黃連 各等分. 右爲末, 猪膽汁浸糕和丸麻子大, 薄荷紫蘇湯下一二十丸. 《入門》

Translation

Treats brain gan. Gentian, cimicifuga, melia root bark, siler, red poria, aloe, ash of oiled hair, natural indigo and coptis, equal parts of each. Powder the above and bind with rice cake soaked in pig bile into pills the size of hemp seeds; give ten to twenty pills down in a decoction of mint and perilla. — Uihak Immun 入門 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Gentian and coptis for the heat, cimicifuga and siler to lift and disperse it, red poria to drain, aloe to move the bowel, and ash of oiled human hair; bound with rice cake soaked in pig bile. 腦疳 is the crusted, itching, discharging head of a wasted child, and the scalp and face are where malnourished skin breaks down first — impetigo, tinea capitis, infected crusting around the nose. The chapter's reading of it as worm-vapour rising to the head is why melia root bark is in a formula for a skin condition. Human hair ash — 油髮灰 — is exactly what it says: oiled hair burnt to a char. It is a human material, and like the soot and earth remedies elsewhere in this chapter it is a route of infection rather than a dressing, though here it is taken internally. For the melia root bark see 下蟲丸 (`hachung-hwan`), where its toxicity is set out; for the aloe see 蘆薈丸 (`nohoe-hwan`). The point made in full on 胡黃連丸 (`hohwangryeon-hwan`) applies: this is not food, and the skin heals when the child is fed. **Every drug in this pill is given as an equal part of an unstated total, to a child, and the text gives no dose by weight anywhere. This must not be prepared.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.

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