A literature study on Bromidrosis

腋격의 病因.病機.治療에 對한 文獻的 考察

Bromidrosis is a disease which is also called huchou[호격] in the oriental medicine. This disease produces an odor and a small amount of sweat from the axillary area. Prognosis of the disease could possibly get better with age. This can be explained by the fact that its symptoms begin usually when a person reaches puberty and as the person gets old, the symptoms reduce or disappear even when specific treatments are not applied. Although the disease is not lethal, many patients have difficulties in leading a normal and comfortable life, physically and psychologically with this in mind and some osbservations gained from the literature studies on the causes,symptoms, and treatments, I embarked on a study aimed at finding out the therapies. My study on the literature has produced the following results ; 1. In the oriental medicine, hu-chou[호격] means the characteric smell or odor produced from the fox. 2. The literature studies point out two causes in the oriental medicine. One is natural. The other is acquired. Acquired cases have the following causes: shi-re-nei-yun[濕熱內蘊]. xie-뱌-bu-huo[血氣不和], gan-qi-yu-jie[肝氣鬱結]. 3 There are two therapies in the oriental medicine. One is internal and the other external. out of the two, external therapies were mainly used according to the literature studies that I have consulted. 4. According to my study, the most frequently used herbal medicine was Alunitum(明 礬)(45 times), followed by Minium(密陀僧)(39 times) and Moschus(?香)(21 times respectively). 5. My study also found that bian-zheng[辨證] was not .rarely listed on old literatures. Therefore, old literatures did not clearly show how to root out the disease. They only taught now to alleviate the symptoms and remove the characteric odor.