安息香 안식향 (안식향)

Original, read line by line 東醫寶鑑 · Tangaek — Decoctions vol. 3

1. 性平, 味辛苦, 無毒.

   Its nature is neutral, its taste pungent and bitter, and it carries no toxicity, making it gentle enough for broad use.

2. 主心腹惡氣鬼疰.

   It is chiefly used for foul ki in the chest and abdomen, and for the wasting illness the ancients called gwiju, a chronic decline whose cause they could not name.

3. 治邪氣, 魍魎, 鬼胎, 辟蠱毒, 瘟疫,

   It treats noxious ki, the so-called mountain spirits, phantom pregnancies, and wards off venomous gu poisoning and epidemic disease, which is why burning it doubled as folk infection control.

4. 療腎氣, 霍亂,

   It restores depleted kidney ki and treats sudden vomiting-and-diarrhea spells, serving as a kind of emergency remedy for summer collapse.

5. 治婦人血噤, 産後血暈.

   It treats blood-lock seizures in women and the dizzy collapse that can follow childbirth, conditions in which burning the resin was used to revive the mother.

6. 生南海.

   It is native to the southern seas, the tropical lands of Southeast Asia, and even its name is said to derive from the old Western kingdom of Anxi, ancient Parthia.

7. 刻其樹皮, 其膠如飴,

   When the bark is scored, a sticky resin oozes out like malt syrup, much as maple sap collects from a deliberate wound in the trunk.

8. 六七月堅凝, 乃取之.

   By the sixth or seventh month it hardens, and only then is it harvested, the midsummer heat naturally curing the resin.

9. 似松脂, 黃黑色爲塊,

   It resembles pine resin, forming yellowish-black lumps with a texture somewhere between amber and pine pitch.

10. 新者亦柔軟.

    Freshly gathered pieces remain soft and pliable, hardening and deepening in fragrance as they age.

11. 燒之通神, 辟衆惡. 《本草》

    When burned, its fragrance was said to reach the spirits and drive away all manner of evil, which is why it was a mainstay of incense burners in temples and shrines. [Bencao]

12. 我國出濟州,

    In our country it is produced on Jeju Island, whose warm southern climate suited the resin-bearing tree.

13. 如膏油者, 名水安息香,

    The kind that flows like oil is called water-benzoin, essentially the resin in its freshly oozed, still-liquid state.

14. 作塊者, 名乾安息香.

    The hardened lump form is called dry benzoin, the shelf-stable shape most commonly traded in markets.

15. 忠淸道亦有之. 《俗方》

    Chungcheong Province also yields it, a note showing that similar resin could be gathered on the Korean mainland and not only on Jeju. [Sokbang]