Formulas · Clear Heat 淸熱 · Hwaje Gukbang (和劑局方)

Gentian Formula

Yongdam-won

한글 용담원 · Pinyin Long Dan Yuan

龍膽元

This is not 龍膽丸 (`yongdam-hwan`), the Immun pill for 腦疳 four leaves further on in this same sub-section, which has nine drugs including aloe, melia root bark and hair ash; the two share only gentian, coptis, indigo's company and the pig-bile binder, and the 元/丸 of the name is the only difference between them. Nor is it the Jikji 龍膽散 (`yongdam-san`) or the Cheongeumbang 龍膽湯 (`yongdam-tang-soa`). The transcription's ≪ opens four characters early, so that 一二十丸 falls inside the brackets with the source label — ≪一二十丸局方≫. The phrase is the end of the dosing instruction, and it is printed here as the 細註 the transcription makes of it. The First Edition almost certainly reads 熟水下一二十丸《局方》; the transcription has no 下 at all, which is recorded here rather than supplied. The leaf writes 𤍠 for 熱 and 為 for 爲, both normalized.

Composition 構成

Yongdamcho Long Dan Cao
龍膽草 용담초 · Gentian

—
Chief 君

equal parts (各等分)
Hwangnyeon Huang Lian
黃連 황련 · Coptis

—
Deputy 臣

equal parts (各等分)
Cheongpi Qing Pi
靑皮 청피 · Green Tangerine Peel

—
Assistant 佐

equal parts (各等分)
Sagunja Shi Jun Zi
使君子 사군자 · Rangoon Creeper Fruit

—
Assistant 佐

equal parts (各等分) · a genuine anthelmintic
Jeodamjeup Zhu Dan Zhi
猪膽汁 저담즙 · Pig Bile

—
Envoy 使

猪膽汁, pig bile, as the binder

Total g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts. Excludes 5 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

Treats hot gan — four drugs in equal parts, bound with pig bile into radish-seed pills
Given ten to twenty pills in boiled water

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

熱疳 — hot gan, with the yellow wasting and the sores of the section head

Biomedical correlates

Protein-energy malnutrition in a child, with fever
Intestinal roundworm — ascariasis — as a contributing cause

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治熱疳. 龍膽草ㆍ黃連ㆍ靑皮ㆍ使君子各等分. 右爲末, 猪膽汁和丸蘿葍子大, 熟水<span class='sochu'>一二十丸</span>. 《局方》

Translation

Treats hot gan. Gentian, coptis, green tangerine peel and quisqualis fruit, equal parts of each. Powder the above and bind with pig bile into pills the size of radish seeds — ten to twenty pills in boiled water. — Gukbang 局方 (Donguibogam · Soa)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The shortest formula in the section: gentian and coptis for the heat, green tangerine peel to move the stagnation the chapter reads under it, quisqualis for the worms, and pig bile — itself bitter and cold — as the binder. Section 1.38.9 熱疳 names it alongside 五福化毒丹 for the child who is yellow and wasted with sparrow-vision or sores. The worm drugs in this section are the part of it that works. 使君子 (Quisqualis indica fruit), 苦練根 (Melia root bark) and 蕪荑 (elm fruit paste) are genuine anthelmintics, and 使君子 is still in use: its active quisqualic acid paralyses Ascaris, which is exactly the 蛔虫 the chapter names. 蛔疳 is ascariasis, and 下蟲丸 — bring-down-the-worms pill — says so in its name. A child with a heavy Ascaris burden really is malnourished by it, and clearing the worms really does help. The modern version is one 400 mg dose of albendazole, or 500 mg of mebendazole, given once; it costs a few cents, works better, and is measured. **An effective drug with no stated dose is still a hazard, and the text gives no dose by weight anywhere: enough 使君子 causes hiccup, vomiting and diarrhoea, which is the last thing a child already losing fluid to 疳瀉 can afford.** The point made in full on 胡黃連丸 (`hohwangryeon-hwan`) applies: this is not food, and three of the four drugs are bitter cold, which is to say appetite-suppressing, in a child who needs to eat. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.