The Role of the Patent Medicine Ruyi Jinhuang San in Treating Cancer
Ruyi Jinhuang San (As-You-Wish Golden-Yellow Powder) is a Chinese patent medicine that clears heat and resolves toxin, disperses swelling and stops pain. It is mostly used for boils, furuncles, and swelling pain caused by heat-toxin congealing and stagnating in the skin, presenting as redness, swelling, heat, and pain of the skin; it can also be used for traumatic injuries. When using it, mix Ruyi Jinhuang San with warm tea and apply it externally to the red, swollen area on the body surface.
Ruyi Jinhuang San is composed of ten herbs: Trichosanthes root (Tian Hua Fen), Phellodendron (Huang Bai), rhubarb (Da Huang), turmeric (Jiang Huang), angelica dahurica (Bai Zhi), magnolia bark (Hou Po), tangerine peel (Chen Pi), licorice (Gan Cao), atractylodes (Cang Zhu), and Arisaema (Tian Nan Xing). Among them, Arisaema is highly toxic; it is relatively safe for external application, but must be used with great care internally. The prepared Ruyi Jinhuang San is a yellow or golden-yellow powder; it is named "golden-yellow powder" because of its color.
Ruyi Jinhuang San comes from volume one of the Ming-dynasty work Waike Zhengzong (Orthodox External Medicine) by Chen Shigong. The Waike Zhengzong says of it: "It treats yin and yang abscesses and back boils, all kinds of ding swellings, traumatic injuries, damp-phlegm flowing toxins, large-head seasonal swelling, lacquer sore and fire cinnabar, wind-heat heavenly blisters, red swelling of the skin, dry and wet athlete's foot, breast abscess in women, and erysipelas in children; for all the stubborn, malignant, swollen-pain external ailments, applying it on the spot never fails to respond. It is truly a handy, excellent formula for sores."
According to Chen Shigong, the indications for Ruyi Jinhuang San are very broad; applied externally, it treats many skin diseases and unnamed swellings. The formula verse for Ruyi Jinhuang San in the Waike Zhengzong goes: "Ruyi Jinhuang Powder has rhubarb, turmeric, phellodendron, angelica dahurica, tangerine peel, and atractylodes; Arisaema, magnolia bark, and Trichosanthes root—apply it, and a hundred swellings are surely calmed." Ruyi Jinhuang San is therefore suitable for treating all kinds of swelling and pain.
Pharmacies sell the finished Ruyi Jinhuang San. If one cannot buy it, one can prepare it oneself according to its formula: ten parts Trichosanthes root; five parts each of Phellodendron, rhubarb, turmeric, and angelica dahurica; two parts each of magnolia bark, tangerine peel, licorice, atractylodes, and Arisaema. Pulverize them in a grinder into a very fine powder, sift, and seal for use.
Modern usage often requires mixing with tea for application, but in Chen Shigong's original work the medium for mixing was not limited to tea: "Whenever there is red, hot, swollen pain that has not yet formed pus, and in the summer fire season, mix with tea broth and honey for application; if there is slight heat and slight swelling, or a large sore that has already formed and is about to suppurate, mix with scallion broth and honey; if there is diffuse swelling without a head, unchanged skin color, damp-phlegm flowing toxin, bone-attached abscess, or crane's-knee wind, mix with scallion wine decoction; if the ailment arises from wind-heat venomous evil, with the skin hot, bright red, and shape wandering, mix with honey water; if there are heavenly blisters, fire cinnabar, red wandering cinnabar, yellow-water lacquer sore, or evil-blood attacking and pouring, mix with crushed juice of Isatis root and leaf, adding honey; for scalds and burns with broken skin, mix with sesame oil. With these various vehicles, one selects according to the cold, hot, warm, or cool nature; at the moment of use, one follows the season and reads the disease's tendency, so that the vehicle is appropriate." This shows that in the original work, different vehicles were used for different conditions.
Ruyi Jinhuang San can treat cellulitis, acute mastitis, acute lymphadenitis, shingles, synovitis, and many other diseases. It can also be used to treat various tumors of the heat-toxin type, such as breast cancer, lymphoma, skin cancer, and melanoma.
Besides this, modern TCM clinicians have also found in practice that Ruyi Jinhuang San can be used for phlebitis and venous thrombosis caused by chemotherapy or PICC-line placement in cancer patients, and can also be used to treat lymphoceles after surgery for breast, cervical, or ovarian cancer.
Modern pharmacology has confirmed that Ruyi Jinhuang San has certain antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and analgesic effects; it can markedly reduce inflammatory exudate, protect vascular endothelial cells, and reduce vascular-wall permeability. In vitro bacteriostatic tests show that Ruyi Jinhuang San can inhibit Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and hemolytic streptococcus.