Honeysuckle Pill

Indong-hwan

한글 인동환 · Pinyin Ren Dong Wan

忍冬丸

癕 is given above as 癰, and 甁 and 晒 are printed as the transcription has them. 根莖花葉皆可用 stands as plain text in this leaf, without the ≪≫ marks that the Wasting Thirst chapter's Indong-won carries on the same clause, and is printed as it reads. The collation note 壅 : 癕(初刊本) stands on its own line at the 015a/015b page boundary immediately after this leaf, but it does not annotate this leaf: there is no 壅 in this text. The word it annotates is 令壅結爲癰疽毒腫 in the Yeongwibanhon-tang cross-reference leaf earlier on page 015a, where the 初刊本 reads 令癕結; the transcription's 壅 is the correct reading and the variant is recorded here because the note falls at this leaf's foot.

Composition 構成

Indong Ren Dong Teng
忍冬 인동 · Honeysuckle Vine

400 g
Chief 君

忍冬草, in any quantity — root, stem, flower and leaf all usable; wine-steeped and roasted overnight in chaff embers
Gamcho Gan Cao
甘草 감초 · Licorice

20 g
Envoy 使

少許, a small amount

Total 420 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

Treats all abscesses and sores generally
Especially suited to the deep-rooted abscess that follows wasting thirst
Uses the whole honeysuckle plant, wine-steeped and ember-roasted, and returns the steeping wine as the binder

Indications 主治

Pattern-based

All abscesses and the various sores (一切癰疽諸瘡)
The deep-rooted abscess that breaks out after wasting thirst (消渴後發疽尤宜服此)
Long-course dosing in heat toxin with sores

Biomedical correlates

Diabetic soft-tissue and skin infection — historical framing
Recurrent furunculosis or chronic suppuration
Long-course preventive therapy in a patient prone to abscess

Source text 原文

Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑

通治一切癰疽諸瘡, 消渴後發疽尤宜服此. 忍冬草不以多少, 根莖花葉皆可用. 右入甁內, 好酒浸, 以糠火煨一宿, 取出晒乾, 入甘草少許, 搗爲細末, 以所浸酒打麵糊和丸梧子大. 每服百丸, 酒飮任下. 《精要》

Translation

Treats all abscesses and deep-rooted abscesses and the various sores generally; for the deep-rooted abscess that breaks out after wasting thirst it is especially fit to take this. Honeysuckle, in any quantity — root, stem, flower and leaf may all be used. Put it in a jar, steep it in good wine, bury it in embers of rice chaff and roast it overnight, take it out and dry it in the sun; add a small amount of licorice, pound it to a fine powder, and with the wine it was steeped in beat up a flour paste and bind pills the size of parasol-tree seeds. Take 100 pills at a dose, washed down with wine or thin rice water as suits. — Jeongyo 精要 (Donguibogam · Ongjeo)

Clinical commentary 臨床

One plant, used whole, and the preparation wastes none of it: root, stem, flower and leaf together, steeped in wine in a sealed jar, buried overnight in chaff embers to roast, sun-dried, powdered with a little licorice, and bound with a flour paste beaten up in the very wine it steeped in. A hundred pills a dose, taken with wine. It is a long-course medicine, not a course of packets, and the indication says why. 消渴後發疽尤宜服此 — for the deep-rooted abscess that breaks out after wasting thirst, this above all. That is the thread the chapter keeps returning to. 癰疽上 4.2 puts it the other way round: 久患口乾, 必生癰疽, 忍冬茶常服最佳 — a long-standing dry mouth will certainly breed an abscess, and honeysuckle tea taken regularly is best. The Wasting Thirst chapter names honeysuckle in its preventive trio, and the Deukhyo version of this same pill stands there as Indong-won. Between them, the Bogam has described the diabetic soft-tissue infection and chosen one drug for it. It chose well, by the standards available. Lonicera japonica is the one medicinal in this chapter that modern pharmacology takes seriously for suppurative infection: chlorogenic acid, luteolin and the secoiridoids show real antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activity, and it is still in clinical use across East Asia for exactly this indication. That is a long way from treating a diabetic foot infection, which needs cultures, systemic antibiotics, debridement and glucose control, and which kills limbs when it is managed with tea. But the observation underneath — that the person with long thirst gets abscesses, and that this plant is what to reach for — is the chapter at its most clear-sighted. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.