Dahurian Angelica and Cimicifuga Decoction

Dongwon's formula for an abscess on the arm, and the clearest case in the chapter of a formula built from where the lesion is rather than from what it is. The arm's outer aspect is the hand yangming division, so cimicifuga and platycodon lift the formula upward and outward into the limb, dahurian angelica opens the yangming and is the tradition's standing drug for pus in the upper body, and scutellaria — most of it wine-treated so that it rises rather than sinks — carries the heat-clearing. Astragalus at 4 don is there to hold the qi while all that happens, and the wine-treated safflower moves the blood in a small dose. The section's aetiology is 八風之變, the changes of the eight winds, with the gloss 傷於風者上先受之 — what is damaged by wind is struck first above. That is channel reasoning rather than a reading of the lesion; what is actually in front of the physician is an abscess or a cellulitis of the arm, which in the pre-antibiotic era was a limb- and life-threatening thing. **A spreading infection of a limb needs antibiotics and surgical assessment; abscesses need drainage, and lymphangitis tracking up the arm is an emergency.** — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.