Danjung-Clearing Bamboo Leaf Decoction

The first formula of 癰疽雜證, and the register changes completely. Nothing here is applied to a sore and nothing here is a poison; this is a 竹葉石膏湯-shaped decoction for a patient who is thirsty. Bamboo leaf, cimicifuga, trichosanthes root and ophiopogon at a don, with fresh rehmannia, scutellaria, red peony root, anemarrhena and white poria behind them, and honey-roasted astragalus, ginseng and roasted licorice holding the Qi up. 膻 in the name is 膻中, the centre of the chest, and 淸膻 says where the heat is thought to be. The sub-section above it sets out the reasoning. 熱毒方盛, 或發大渴, 此乃毒氣攻心, 令舌乾煩渴 — when the toxic heat is at its height and great thirst breaks out, it is the toxic qi attacking the heart, drying the tongue and bringing vexing thirst — and the treatment offered is 補心氣藥, medicine to supplement the heart Qi. Thirst after an abscess has been opened is read as a deficiency as much as a heat, which is why a formula for it contains both ginseng and anemarrhena. The observation behind the leaf is sound. A patient with a large abscess or a drained carbuncle is febrile, losing fluid through the wound and through sweating, and often eating and drinking badly; dry tongue and raging thirst are what dehydration looks like. The answer now is fluid, by mouth or by vein, with the infection itself treated separately — and sudden great thirst with polyuria after an abscess should also raise the question of undiagnosed diabetes, which the chapter half-sees when it says elsewhere that a long-standing dry mouth will certainly breed an abscess. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.