Insights and Updates

What is there in the mountains? On the ridges are many white clouds. They give me joy alone, but cannot be sent to you. ——Tao Hongjing, Written in Response to the Imperial Question “What Is There in the Mountains?” The poet who wrote this poem,…

The Chinese herb Yadanzi is the dried ripe fruit of Brucea javanica of the Simaroubaceae family, mainly produced in China's Guangdong and Guangxi regions. In those two regions there are also many folk single-subject recipes using it to treat cancer. I once treated a cancer…

The Chinese herb Baitouweng is the root of Pulsatilla chinensis, Pulsatilla turczaninovii, Pulsatilla bungeana, Pulsatilla dahurica, Pulsatilla koreana, and Pulsatilla campanella of the Ranunculaceae family. Modern textbooks of Chinese materia medica classify it as a heat-clearing, detoxifying herb, holding that Baitouweng clears heat and detoxifies,…

Renshen, Xiyangshen, Dangshen, and Taizishen are four qi-tonifying herbs commonly used in clinic and four healthy-qi-supporting herbs commonly used in oncology. Many tumor patients themselves buy one of these four ginsengs or their extracts as a health supplement. I am often asked by patients which…

Professor Zhang Renji, a disciple of the late Shi Jinmo—one of Beijing's four great TCM doctors—in the preface of his book A New Path in TCM Cancer Treatment, recounts his journey from Western medicine to TCM. Professor Zhang graduated early from Peking University's medical department,…

Huang Qi, also written Huang Qi, is the rhizome of Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bge. var. mongholicus or Astragalus membranaceus (Fisch.) Bge. of the Fabaceae family. It is the most commonly used qi- and blood-tonifying herb in TCM. As early as the era when the Shennong…

The winter jasmine in Beijing has bloomed, and the river has thawed. I live by a river in Beijing. The water in this river is said to be the drinking water of Beijing residents, so the river environment is well protected; the water here is…

The patient was a female eighth-grader. Because her maternal grandfather had osteosarcoma, her parents had been in frequent contact with me. One day the girl's father asked me to see the patient via video. The patient had suffered from intractable insomnia since fifth grade, and…

Yellow sweat disease is a very rare condition in which the patient's sweat is yellow and can stain clothing yellow. Why do people produce yellow sweat? Medicine cannot yet explain it clearly; some yellow-sweat patients are checked for bilirubin, and the level is not elevated,…

Shishangbai, a commonly used herb in TCM oncology, is the whole herb of Selaginella doederleinii of the Selaginellaceae family. Juanbai has a long medicinal history; it was used as medicine as early as the Qin-Han period, and the Shennong Bencaojing lists juanbai as an upper-grade…