Source원문
內經曰, 諸澁枯涸ㆍ乾勁皴揭, 皆屬於燥.
Translation영역
The Neijing says: all that is rough and withered and parched, stiff and chapped and peeling, belongs to dryness.
Naegyeong 內經
Formulas · Text · Donguibogam 東醫寶鑑
Dryness
Jo
한글 조 · Pinyin Zao
The shortest chapter in the book — dryness as blood run short, the four places it shows, and why the treatment is to moisten rather than to purge
燥
Five sections, the briefest chapter in the Donguibogam, and it argues one thing from beginning to end: dryness is not a thing in itself but blood and fluid run short. The Neijing's list of what belongs to dryness — everything rough, withered, parched, stiff, chapped and peeling — is given first, and then the mechanism, which is that fire overcomes metal, wind defeats damp and heat consumes fluid until the sinews are too dry to move. The chapter's one organizing scheme is topographical rather than aetiological: dryness outside chaps and itches the skin, dryness within withers the essence and blood, dryness above parches the throat and nose, dryness below shuts the stool and urine. And its one disagreement with itself is worth the whole chapter. The third section prescribes a purgative, Danggui-seunggi-tang, called the foremost medicine for dryness on the reasoning that what is shut below must be opened. The fourth section then states the rule the chapter is remembered for — 燥者潤之, what is dry, moisten it — and spends the rest of its length on pastes of rehmannia, asparagus root, dioscorea and milk, reduced over a slow fire and eaten by the spoonful. Between the two sits the best formula in the chapter, Saenghyeol-yunbu-eum, whose indication is a dermatological description precise enough to recognize: skin split and cracked, nails withered, scales lifting when scratched, blood and sharp pain. The chapter's pharmacy is almost entirely food, and that is its argument made material.
4.1 Dryness Comes of Blood Run Short 燥因血少
Source원문
火熱勝則金衰而風生, 緣風能勝濕ㆍ熱能耗液而爲燥. 陽實陰虛, 則風熱勝于水濕而爲燥也. 蓋肝主筋而風氣自甚, 又燥熱加之, 則筋太燥也. 燥金主於收斂, 其脉緊澁, 故爲病勁强緊急而口噤也. 夫燥之爲病, 血液衰少, 不能榮養百骸故也. 《正傳》
Translation영역
When fire heat prevails, metal declines and wind arises; and because wind can overcome damp and heat can consume fluid, dryness comes about. Where the yang is replete and the yin vacuous, wind heat prevails over water and damp and there is dryness. Now the liver governs the sinews, and when the wind qi is of itself severe and dryness and heat are added to it, the sinews become excessively dry. Dry metal governs gathering in and contracting, and its pulse is tight and rough; so the disease is stiffness, rigidity, tightness and urgency, with the mouth clenched shut. For dryness as a disease is the blood and fluids declined and scant, unable to construct and nourish the hundred bones.
Clinical note임상 주석
The chapter's thesis in one sentence, and it is at the end: dryness as a disease is the blood and fluids declined and scant, unable to nourish the body. Everything before it is the five-phase route to that conclusion — fire beats metal, wind beats damp, heat consumes fluid — and everything after it follows from it. The clinical picture given here is not the skin but the sinews: stiffness, rigidity, a clenched jaw. That is tetany or dehydration cramping, and attaching it to dryness rather than to wind is a real observation about what fluid loss does to muscle.
Jeongjeon 正傳
4.2 The Pulse 脉法
Source원문
傷燥脉濇. 《入門》 ○脉緊而澁, 或浮而弦, 或芤而虛. 《正傳》
Translation영역
Where dryness has done injury the pulse is rough. The pulse is tight and rough, or floating and wiry, or hollow and vacuous.
Clinical note임상 주석
Four pulses, and three of them are what a depleted vessel feels like: rough, hollow, vacuous. The hollow pulse — 芤, named for the hollow stalk of the scallion — is the tradition's sign for blood lost or fluid spent, and its appearance here rather than anywhere else in the chapter is the pulse section doing what it should.
Immun 入門 · Jeongjeon 正傳
4.3 Dryness Is a Disease of Lung Metal 燥者肺金之病
Source원문
燥者肺金之本. 燥金受熱化以成燥澁, 由風能勝濕ㆍ熱能耗液而成燥也. 燥於外則皮膚皴揭瘙痒, 燥於中則精血枯涸, 燥於上則咽鼻焦乾, 燥於下則便尿結閉. 宜當歸承氣湯. 《類聚》
Translation영역
Dryness is the root of lung metal. Dry metal receives heat's transformation and so becomes dry and rough, for wind can overcome damp and heat can consume fluid, and thus dryness is formed. Dryness without, and the skin is chapped and peeling and itches; dryness within, and the essence and blood are withered and parched; dryness above, and the throat and nose are scorched dry; dryness below, and the stool and urine are bound and shut. Danggui-seunggi-tang is appropriate.
Yuchwi 類聚
Source원문
內經曰, 燥勝則乾. 註曰, 燥勝則津液涸竭, 故皮膚乾燥.
Translation영역
The Neijing says: when dryness prevails there is parching. The commentary: when dryness prevails the fluids are dried up and exhausted, and so the skin is dry.
Clinical note임상 주석
The four-place scheme in the first entry is the chapter's most useful page and the only place it organizes anything: outside the skin, within the essence and blood, above the throat and nose, below the stool and urine. Those are in fact the four territories where dehydration and the dry autumn air show themselves, and a physician could work from the list. What sits oddly with it is the single formula offered — a rhubarb-and-mirabilite purgative — which answers only the fourth of the four and would worsen the other three. The next section is the chapter's correction of this one.
Naegyeong 內經
4.4 Dryness Should Be Treated by Nourishing the Blood 燥宜養血
Source원문
經曰, 燥者潤之, 養血之謂也. 積液固能生氣, 積氣亦能生液. 宜服瓊玉膏. 方見身形 《入門》
Translation영역
The classic says: what is dry, moisten it — which means nourishing the blood. Fluid accumulated can indeed generate qi, and qi accumulated can also generate fluid. Gyeongok-go should be given.
Immun 入門
Source원문
皮膚皴揭ㆍ拆裂血出大痛, 或皮膚瘙痒ㆍ爪甲浮起枯乾, 皆火爍肺金ㆍ燥之甚也. 宜以四物湯去川芎, 合生脉散, 加天門冬ㆍ天花粉ㆍ黃栢ㆍ知母ㆍ酒紅花ㆍ生甘草之類. 《入門》
Translation영역
Skin chapped and peeling, splitting and cracking with blood coming and great pain; or the skin itching and the nails lifting, withered and dry — all are fire scorching lung metal, dryness at its height. Samul-tang with the chuanxiong removed should be combined with Saengmaek-san, and asparagus root, trichosanthes root, phellodendron, anemarrhena, wine-treated safflower and raw licorice and the like added.
Immun 入門
Source원문
榮衛枯涸, 濕劑所以潤之: 二門冬ㆍ人參ㆍ北五味子ㆍ枸杞子, 同爲生脉之劑. 二黃元亦好. 《東垣》
Translation영역
Where the construction and defence are withered and parched, moist prescriptions are what moisten them: the two ophiopogons, ginseng, northern schisandra and lycium fruit together make a pulse-generating prescription. Ihwang-won is also good.
Dongwon 東垣
Translation영역
For dryness disease, Gyeongji-go, Cheonmundong-go, Jiseon-jeon or Saenghyeol-yunbu-eum should be given. Bangpung-tongseong-san can clear heat and moisten dryness.
Clinical note임상 주석
燥者潤之 — what is dry, moisten it — is the sentence the chapter exists for, and the gloss attached to it does the real work: moistening means nourishing the blood. Then the reciprocal principle, that accumulated fluid generates qi and accumulated qi generates fluid, which is the tradition's reason for pairing ginseng with the moisteners rather than giving moisteners alone. The second entry's skin description — splitting, cracking, bleeding, nails lifting — is repeated almost word for word in Saenghyeol-yunbu-eum's own indication, so the formula was written for this passage. Four of the five things prescribed here are syrups and pastes eaten by the spoonful, which makes this chapter's treatment section closer to a diet than a pharmacy.
Donguibogam · Jo
4.5 Simples 單方
Source원문
凡四種.
Translation영역
Four kinds in all.
Donguibogam · Jo
Source원문
山藥 生者治皮膚乾燥, 以此潤之. 蒸食之, 或硏煮粥服之. 《湯液》
Translation영역
Chinese yam (山藥): The fresh root treats dry skin; moisten it with this. Steam it and eat it, or grind it, boil it into a gruel and take it.
Clinical note임상 주석
Four simples, the shortest such section in the book, and every one of them is a food. The Dryness chapter has the simplest pharmacology in the Bogam because its diagnosis is the simplest: the body has run short of fluid, so put fluid back. 皮膚乾燥, dry skin, is where the chapter starts and it is still where a clinician looks first for dehydration and for the dryness of age, of hypothyroidism and of diabetes.
Tangaek 湯液
Source원문
牛酪 作粥常服最妙. 《本草》
Translation영역
Fermented milk (牛酪): Made into a gruel and taken regularly — most excellent.
Clinical note임상 주석
酪 is the fermented or curdled milk of the northern pastoral peoples, and its appearance in a Korean medical text is a reminder of how far the materia medica's reach went. Milk curds in a gruel is a sound thing to give someone dry and depleted, and the only caution is the obvious one — much of the East Asian population lacks lactase, and a fermented product is better tolerated than fresh milk, which is presumably why 酪 and not 乳 is specified.
Boncho 本草
Source원문
天麥門冬 俱治燥病. 煎湯服, 或作丸久服佳. 《本草》
Translation영역
Asparagus root and liriope (天麥門冬): Both treat dryness disease. Decocted and taken, or made into pills and taken over a long time — good.
Clinical note임상 주석
The two 門冬 taken as a pair, as the corpus almost always takes them — asparagus root for dryness below and liriope for dryness above, and together they are the kernel of the fluid-engendering formulas. Both are sweet, cold and heavily mucilaginous, which is as direct a treatment for dryness as the pharmacy had.
Boncho 本草
Source원문
生熟地黃 皆生血潤液. 作煎作丸, 久服爲妙. 《本草》
Translation영역
Raw and prepared rehmannia (生熟地黃): Both engender blood and moisten the fluids. Made into a decoction or into pills and taken over a long time — excellent.
Clinical note임상 주석
The section closes on the pair that the Essence chapter opens with, and here the two forms of the root are taken together rather than distinguished: raw to cool, prepared to supplement, and both to moisten. Four simples — yam, milk curds, the two 門冬, and the two rehmannias — and what they amount to is a diet for a dry body.
Boncho 本草
About this translation 凡例
Base text: Donguibogam (東醫寶鑑, 1613 first edition), Miscellaneous Disorders, Volume 3, Dryness chapter. The Chinese text is collated against a transcription of the Kyujanggak printed edition carrying its leaf numbers and first-edition collation notes; original character forms (脉, 人參) are retained. Terminology follows Wiseman & Feng, A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine. Translation and clinical notes are original to this site. — Eui Young (Justin) Chung, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.