Honeysuckle (Jinyinhua): Clearing Heat and Detoxifying, Dissipating Abscesses and Nodules

Honeysuckle (Jinyinhua) is the flower bud of Lonicera japonica, Lonicera confusa, Lonicera hypoglauca, and Lonicera fulvotomentosa of the Caprifoliaceae family. On the market, honeysuckle is further divided into two types, Jinyinhua and Shanyinhua (wild honeysuckle); the flower buds of Lonicera confusa and Lonicera fulvotomentosa are called Shanyinhua. In reality, however, the shape and effects of Shanyinhua and Jinyinhua are basically similar, so some major Chinese materia medica reference works do not distinguish between the two; for instance, the Zhonghua Bencao (Chinese Materia Medica) unifies both under the name Jinyinhua.

Honeysuckle is white when it first opens and turns yellow after two or three days; on the vine the yellow and white often appear together, the yellow like gold and the white like silver, hence the name honeysuckle (gold-and-silver flower). It is also called Shuanghua, Yinhua, and Rendonghua. Honeysuckle is a climbing vine, and its stem can also be used medicinally; its scientific name is Caulis Lonicerae (Rendongteng), also called honeysuckle vine. Its effects are basically similar to those of the flower bud but weaker. The honeysuckle vine, however, can unblock the collaterals and stop pain, so it is also used to treat rheumatic arthralgia. Honeysuckle on the market is relatively expensive while the vine is much cheaper; when poor families cannot afford the flower bud, they often use the vine as a substitute.

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that honeysuckle is sweet in flavor and cold in nature, entering the lung, heart, and stomach meridians. It clears heat and resolves toxins, disperses wind-heat, dissipates abscesses and nodules, and cools the blood to check dysentery. It can be used to treat carbuncles and furuncles, throat bi, erysipelas, wind-heat common cold, fever in warm diseases, and toxic-heat dysentery with bloody stool.

In my hometown, honeysuckle and honeysuckle vine are common folk herbs for clearing heat, resolving toxins, reducing fire, and soothing the throat. Almost every household in summer gathers and dries some honeysuckle or vine to keep on hand; when someone has "rising fire," they brew honeysuckle or vine tea. After I grew up and left home, every time I return, the elders still give us some dried honeysuckle or vine to take away as a local specialty. The Hubei region abounds in honeysuckle syrup (Jinyinhua lu), which is sold in pharmacies and supermarkets. In the sweltering summer, for heatstroke, mouth ulcers, furuncles, unknown swellings, and scanty dark urine, honeysuckle syrup can be taken. It tastes pleasant, is remarkably effective in relieving summer heat and clearing fire, and is cheap, so it is very popular among ordinary people. The people of Hubei love drinking honeysuckle syrup just as Cantonese people love drinking herbal tea (liangcha).

Honeysuckle is basically non-toxic; the LD50 of its extract by subcutaneous injection in mice is 53 g/kg. Although chlorogenic acid in honeysuckle can act as an allergen and cause allergic reactions, this applies only to injection; oral administration does not produce such reactions, so through the ages many physicians have used large doses of honeysuckle.

Honeysuckle "is an essential herb for internal and external abscesses, resolving toxins and expelling pus, with supplementation within its purgation." It can treat all kinds of sores, swellings, and toxic heat. The great Qing-dynasty physician Chen Shiduo (Yuangong) loved using honeysuckle to treat sores and swellings throughout his life, and he used very large amounts, often more than half a jin (about 250 g) each time. His work Dongtian Aozhi (Secret Lore of the Cavernous Heavens) is a famous text of Chinese external medicine, and in it he strongly advocates honeysuckle as an indispensable herb for treating abscess-type diseases.

Because of this tradition in Chinese external medicine, among contemporary renowned anticancer physicians there are also those who use large doses of honeysuckle; in many prescriptions the amount of honeysuckle exceeds 60 g. In vitro tests have also confirmed that the water and alcohol extracts of honeysuckle have a marked cytotoxic effect on mouse sarcoma S180 and Ehrlich ascites carcinoma. Honeysuckle's more notable effects, however, are its antimicrobial and antitoxic actions. Honeysuckle extract inhibits to some extent a variety of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus, hemolytic streptococci, Vibrio cholerae, Escherichia coli, and dysentery bacilli. When combined with Forsythia (Lianqiao), its antibacterial action is even stronger. Honeysuckle's antitoxic effect is also evident: total toadstool saponins isolated from Lonicera fulvotomentosa significantly lower alanine aminotransferase activity and liver triglyceride content in mice poisoned with carbon tetrachloride, D-galactosamine, or paracetamol, and reduce pathological liver damage. Honeysuckle also has anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, lipid-lowering, and central-nervous-system stimulant effects.

Yinqiao San, the famous formula for treating fever in warm diseases, is composed mainly of honeysuckle and Forsythia. Qingluo Yin, which treats taiyin summer-heat warmth (a summer disease marked by headache and distension and blurred vision after sweating), is made from lotus leaf, honeysuckle, watermelon peel, white hyacinth bean flower, luffa peel, and bamboo leaf heart. In Dongtian Aozhi, Guihua Tang, for the early stage of abscesses and back sores, uses half a jin of honeysuckle boiled in ten bowls of water down to two bowls, then adds two liang (about 60 g) of Chinese angelica (Danggui) and boils together to one bowl, taken internally. In Huofa Jiyao, Huichuang Jinyinhua San uses two liang of honeysuckle (with stems and leaves), four liang of Astragalus (Huangqi), and one liang of licorice (Gancao), chopped, soaked and sealed in one sheng of wine, then boiled together in a pot. In Waike Jingyao, honeysuckle is used to treat wasting-thirst (xiaoke) and sores and swellings. In Jiyin Gangmu, honeysuckle, Chinese angelica, Astragalus, and licorice are combined into Jinyinhua San to treat mammary abscess with unbearable pain.

I once treated a patient whose huge facial tumor had ulcerated and would not close, to the point that maggots had formed. I reused 120 g of honeysuckle and 120 g raw Astragalus, added 30 g of Bletilla (Baiji) and one liang of honey, and decocted them into a syrup, which the patient drank in full over the course of a day, divided any number of times. Several days later the ulcerated tumor closed. In addition, one of my teachers was skilled at treating acute mastitis with honeysuckle vine wine: 60 g of honeysuckle vine, 60 g of yellow rice wine, and two bowls of water boiled together to half a bowl, taken all at once, which was quite effective.

For all kinds of heat diseases in external medicine, honeysuckle is indispensable. However, patients with deficiency-cold of the spleen and stomach, and those with qi-deficiency sores bearing clear pus, should not use honeysuckle.