Formulas · Tonify Yang 補陽 · Dongwon (東垣)

Supplement the Marrow Elixir (Lumbus chapter)

Bosu-dan

한글 보수단 · Pinyin Bu Sui Dan

補髓丹

Powdered; fifteen walnut kernels are worked into a soft paste with a little wheat flour, boiled with wine into a binding paste, and formed into pills the size of parasol-tree seeds; 100 pills on an empty stomach with salted broth. Distinct from the Supplement the Marrow Elixir of the Taxation chapter, which is built on animal spines and soft-shelled turtle.

Composition 構成

Bogolji Bu Gu Zhi
補骨脂 보골지 · Psoralea

200 g
Chief 君 fried with 2.5 nyang of sesame, the sesame then discarded
Duchung Du Zhong
杜仲 두충 · Eucommia Bark

200 g
Chief 君 ginger-juice-fried
Nokyong Lu Rong
鹿茸 녹용 · Deer Velvet Antler

40 g
Deputy 臣
Molyak Mo Yao
沒藥 몰약 · Myrrh

20 g
Assistant 佐
Hodoyuk Hu Tao Rou
胡桃肉 호도육 · Walnut Flesh

60 g
Envoy 使 15 kernels, made into a soft paste with a little wheat flour

Total 520 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

Fills the marrow where Kidney vacuity has emptied the low back
Adds antler and myrrh to the eucommia-psoralea core

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

Kidney vacuity lumbar pain (治腎虛腰痛)
Depletion with a component of stasis
Long-course restoration of the lumbus

Biomedical correlates

Chronic low back pain with weakness
Age-related lumbar decline
Long-course restorative therapy

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

治腎虛腰痛. 破故紙五兩(以脂麻二兩半同炒去脂麻), 杜沖(薑汁炒) 五兩, 鹿茸一兩, 沒藥五錢. 右爲末, 胡桃肉十五箇軟膏入麪少許, 酒煮爲糊作丸梧子大, 空心, 鹽湯下百丸. 《東垣》

Translation

Treats Kidney vacuity lumbar pain. Psoralea 5 nyang, fried together with 2.5 nyang of sesame and the sesame then discarded; ginger-juice-fried eucommia 5 nyang; deer antler 1 nyang; myrrh 5 don. Powder the above; work fifteen walnut kernels into a soft paste with a little wheat flour, boil with wine into a binding paste, and form pills the size of parasol-tree seeds; take 100 pills on an empty stomach with salted broth. — Dongwon 東垣 (Donguibogam · Yo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

The same two chiefs again — psoralea and eucommia at five nyang each — with deer antler for the marrow and five don of myrrh for the pain. The sesame in the psoralea's preparation is a small point worth noticing: it is fried alongside and then thrown away, present only to change how the psoralea cooks. That kind of instruction appears throughout this chapter and is one of the things a translation has to preserve to be usable. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.