Library

Another prescription: Frankincense Formula. Take a piece of transparent frankincense (size similar to a soapberry), grind it into fine powder. When the parturient feels lower back pain, take one small cup of freshly drawn water, add a little vinegar, and mix well. Support the woman to stand up, have her grasp a stone swallow (Shiyan) in each hand, and let the midwife feed her the mixed medicine; first instruct the pregnant woman to recite "Medical Spirit, Medicinal Sage" three times, then take the medicine. Afterwards, support her to walk a few steps briefly; within a short while, she will give birth while sitting on the birthing mat, without pain, which is miraculous and excellent.

Rushen Kaigu Ointment from *Experience Prescriptions*: Take an appropriate amount of frankincense. On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month at noon hour, have one person hold a mortar on a stool behind a wall, and have a child pass the frankincense grains through a brush tube inserted through a crack in the wall into the mortar, grinding them extremely fine. Have the child face north and drip water to form pills the size of a chicken head. Take one pill per dose, swallowed with unfermented wine. *Haishang Fang* uses equal parts of frankincense and cinnabar ground into fine powder, taken with alcohol-mixed musk.

Prescription for difficult labor or malpresentation (inverted or obstructed): Snake Molt Formula.
Ingredients: One snake molt (complete), one sheet of silkworm molt paper (absent in some versions).
Place the above ingredients in a new earthenware jar, seal firmly with salt mud, calcine until the original nature is preserved, and grind into powder. Decoct bark of Ulmus pumila (Yubai Pi) to adjust the powder, taking one qian per dose. After three doses, when pain is felt, delivery occurs. Another version states: For lower back pain during labor, use one zi of musk, adjusted with warm wine, named Er Miao San (Two Wonders Powder).

Wanjing Buzhuan Yuxian Dan (Ten Thousand Gold Non-Transmitted Immortal Pill) for Promoting Labor:
Ingredients: Fourteen castor seeds (Castor Semen, Qimai Ren, shelled), Cinnabar (Zhusha), Realgar (Xionghuang) (each 1.5 qian), one snake molt (calcined).
Grind the above into fine powder, mix with rice water and cooked rice to form pills the size of a marble. At the time of labor, first wash and wipe the area below the navel with pepper soup, then place one pill in the umbilicus, cover with several layers of wax paper, and secure with a wide cloth band. Within a short while, the baby is born; immediately remove the medicine. One pill can be used three times.

Treating difficult labor, also treating retained placenta, and also treating dead fetus.
Usage: Take seven castor seeds (Castor Semen, Qimai Ren), shell them, grind finely into a paste, and apply to the soles of the feet. The placenta will descend quickly; wash it off immediately. If not washed off, the intestines may prolapse; in that case, apply this paste to the vertex of the head, and the intestines will retract naturally. This effect is as effective as a sage. Another version specifies seven seeds for a male infant and fourteen for a female infant. Another version uses one hundred castor seeds and one qian of realgar powder, ground together and applied using the aforementioned method.