‘Black Ginseng’ that Kings ate when they had a sore throat and snoring[이상곤의 실록한의학]〈152〉

The reign of King Hyeonjong (1659-1674), the 18th king of Joseon, was a time of intense factional strife, beginning with the controversy over the rites and songs. The power struggle between factions that had nothing to do with the people’s livelihoods led to the ‘Gyeongsin famine’, making the people’s lives a living hell until the end of his reign.

Lee Sang-gon, Director of Gapsan Oriental Medicine Clinic

King Hyeonjong, whose body and mind were worn out by the constant partisan strife and the suppression of the Hun-gu faction, confessed his feelings, saying, “I feel like my internal organs are burning, and I would rather die.” Was it because of this extreme stress? King Hyeonjong often suffered from pharyngitis. He suffered from symptoms such as a sore throat and fever, and also suffered from aphonia, which is the inability to speak.

The throat is a space where food and air pass through, so it needs more mucus than other organs. Food is easier to swallow when it is covered in mucus. When breathing, mucus is needed to filter out impurities and keep the air flowing smoothly when it enters the lungs. In Oriental medicine, it is said that tonsillitis occurs when there is a problem with the kidneys, which control the secretion of mucus, or when stress causes fire in the liver and gallbladder, causing the mucus in the throat to evaporate. When the throat dries out and the mucus disappears, the function of filtering viruses and bacteria disappears, causing tonsillitis or a sore throat.

King Hyeonjong’s frequent outbreaks of throat disease seem to have been caused by stress from party strife that caused irritation to the liver and gallbladder. In fact, if you look at the records of the Seungjeongwon Diary, you can find that he suffered from throat disease in various places, such as in the 4th, 6th, and 9th years of King Hyeonjong’s reign. There are detailed descriptions of his symptoms, such as “his throat was red and the surrounding area was swollen,” “he had no voice and was in severe pain,” and “he had difficulty speaking and swallowing food.”

Although the prescriptions for this type of throat disease of King Hyeonjong were different each time, there was one medicine that always appeared: Hyunsam (玄蔘). The literal meaning is ‘black ginseng’, and Hyunsam, because of its black color, strengthened the source of yin energy and treated the increased heat in the kidneys. Hyunsam helps treat the entire throat, which was formerly called the pharynx, especially swollen tonsils and snoring. Snoring occurs when the muscles that move the lower jaw and the muscles of the tongue relax while you sleep, causing the tongue to be pushed back and downward, narrowing the space through which air flows behind the nose and the back of the mouth, vibrating the soft palate (the roof of the mouth).

It is commonly known that snoring occurs more frequently when the inside of the nose swells and narrows due to rhinitis. Snoring becomes worse when you drink a lot of alcohol because the hot yang energy contained in alcohol causes swelling in the nose and pharynx.
In particular, snoring in children can cause serious aftereffects due to tonsil or adenoid symptoms, and can cause growth disorders such as stunted growth by suppressing the secretion of growth hormones secreted at night, and can cause arrhythmia due to oral breathing, which reduces concentration. In addition, if they struggle to breathe, it can be the beginning of various neurological diseases.

In modern medicine, surgical treatment to remove inflamed tonsils or enlarged adenoids is the mainstream, but in Oriental medicine, conservative treatment using scutellaria root prescribed by Hyeonjong is often effective. The scutellaria root’s effect of replenishing yin and cooling fever greatly helps in treating chronic pharyngitis symptoms with swelling in the nose or throat, as well as chronic snoring. In this way, scutellaria root, also called ‘black ginseng’, may be a more necessary medicine than ginseng for modern people who suffer from enormous stress every day.

Lee Sang-gon, Director of Gapsan Oriental Medicine Clinic

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2024-08-26 21:13:33