Exploring the TCM Purgation Approach to Treating Cancer
The purgation method is one of the most important TCM approaches to cancer treatment. China's renowned contemporary anti-cancer TCM physician, the elder Sun Bingyan, was a master of using purgation to treat cancer and achieved outstanding results. There are often late-stage cancer patients who, after treatment by Old Sun using purgation, are brought back from the brink and enjoy extremely long survival. I corresponded for many years with a late-stage cancer patient treated by Old Sun—the Sina blog netizen "Shengdi Mei Ya" (Toothless Holy Land). After Old Sun's treatment, the patient did not relapse for more than ten years.
But during that treatment, the side effects were enormous. The patient took herbs until his whole body became edematous and he was almost poisoned to death. Yet precisely such violent toxic side effects allowed this patient—whose widespread metastatic late-stage cancer other doctors thought he could not survive half a year—to hold on for over ten years before relapse. More than ten years later, having taught himself TCM out of illness, Shengdi Mei Ya prescribed formulas for himself and survived for many more years. From the discovery of his late-stage cancer in 1995 until now, he is still alive. As a diehard TCM fan, he has consistently refused Western medical treatment.
TCM purgation includes three of the eight TCM therapeutic methods—sweating (fa han), emesis (tu fa), and draining downward (xia fa)—as well as the TCM strategy of "using poison to attack poison." The sweating method achieves effect through promoting diaphoresis; the emetic method through inducing vomiting; the draining-downward method through promoting urination and purgation; and the using-poison-to-attack-poison strategy employs various toxic substances to attack the cancer toxin within the body, thereby achieving the goal of treating cancer.
But the purgation method carries very high risk. Whether for patient or physician, using purgation to treat cancer entails unpredictable danger. In the current climate of severe doctor-patient disputes, most physicians have abandoned attempts to treat cancer with purgation, instead positioning TCM cancer treatment as an adjunct to Western medicine, offering only root-supporting supportive care. The result is that the TCM purgation method—a treatment with genuine efficacy—cannot play its proper role in cancer treatment and cannot make its due contribution to saving some cancer patients.
I myself like very much to use TCM purgation to treat major diseases such as cancer, hepatitis B, and asthma, and I have fortunately rescued some critically ill cancer patients from the hands of death. But I have also encountered attacks from patients and their families. Fortunately, whenever this happens, I promptly take root-supporting measures, restore the patient's body to good order, and quickly withdraw from treatment to avoid unexpected disaster.
After experiencing some of the ways of the world, I have come to realize that if one wishes to use purgation to treat major diseases such as cancer, one must fully communicate with the patient and family. Only after obtaining the patient's and family's consent may one adopt purgation, and one must inform them that purgation carries certain risks and may not necessarily solve the patient's problem. Only if the patient and family fully understand, before treatment, both the actions and the drawbacks of purgation, will they not be excessively panicked when corresponding side effects appear during treatment.
Zhang Zihe, one of the Four Great Masters of the Jin-Yuan dynasty, is the representative figure of TCM purgation.