Formulas · External Application 外用 · Yeonja (涓子)

Frankincense Paste

Yuhyang-go

한글 유향고 · Pinyin Ru Xiang Gao

乳香膏

靑絹, the green silk used as the covering, is apparatus rather than a drug and stays in the source text. 靑薄荷葉 resolves to 薄荷 by way of the 薄荷葉 part variant. 盖 is printed as the transcription has it, since the corpus prints that form; 𤍠 is printed as 熱. The source label is given only as 涓子; the base text offers no fuller title and the label is not glossed elsewhere in the corpus, the corpus already romanises this label as Yeonja in nine places, and that is followed here.

Composition 構成

Yuhyang Ru Xiang
乳香 유향 · Frankincense

40 g
Chief 君

一兩
Bakha Bo He
薄荷 박하 · Mint

160 g
Deputy 臣

靑薄荷葉四兩 — fresh green mint leaf, ground in with the resin

Total 200 g per packet (첩) · representative dosage — verify against source texts.

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

An external poultice laid over a newly erupted abscess on the back and covered with silk
Kept moist with fresh water so that it goes on cooling
Disperses the heat-toxin, lessens the pain and relieves the dragging

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

背瘡初發 — a sore on the back when it first erupts
赤腫而高 — red, swollen and standing high
牽引 — the dragging ache spreading from a tense swelling

Biomedical correlates

Early cellulitis or furuncle on the back — cooling topical
Inflamed swelling before pus has collected

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治背瘡初發赤腫而高. 乳香一兩, 靑薄荷葉四兩. 右硏勻, 罨患處, 靑絹盖之. 如乾, 新水潤之, 令熱毒消散, 減疼免牽引. 《涓子》

Translation

Treats a sore on the back when it first erupts, red, swollen and standing high. Frankincense 1 nyang, green mint leaf 4 nyang. Grind them evenly, lay the mass over the affected place and cover it with green silk. When it dries, moisten it with fresh water. It makes the heat-toxin disperse, lessens the pain and spares the patient the dragging. — Yeonja 涓子 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

Four parts fresh green mint leaf to one part frankincense, ground together into a wet mass and laid straight over the swelling, held in place with a piece of green silk and re-wetted with fresh water whenever it dries out. The mint is the bulk and the cooling; the frankincense is the resin that gives the mass body and carries the analgesic side of the claim. It is for the beginning of a 背瘡, a sore on the back, while it is still 赤腫而高 — red, swollen and standing up — which is the stage before pus has collected and the stage at which the chapter's cooling applications belong. 免牽引, sparing the dragging, names the pulling ache that spreads from a tense swelling on the back, and that is the symptom the poultice is aimed at. As a cool moist compress over an inflamed area this is reasonable and close to harmless, and menthol genuinely does numb. What it cannot do is touch the infection underneath. A red, hot, rapidly enlarging swelling on the back needs assessment, and if it has already become an abscess it needs drainage; a 發背 left to a poultice is how the deep back abscesses this chapter is full of came about. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.