Scorpion (Quanxie): Anticancer Effects and Side Effects
The scorpion is a venomous insect, but it has also been a Chinese herb used clinically from ancient times to the present. Not only did the ancient Chinese like to use scorpion medicinally, modern pharmaceutical manufacturers do too; Cuban blue scorpion venom (escorazul) is an anticancer drug developed by Cuban researchers after tens of thousands of experiments, made by diluting the venom of the Cuban blue scorpion.
Chinese-medicine scorpion also has anticancer effects. The Chinese-medicine scorpion is the whole body of Buthus martensii (East Asian scorpion) of the Buthidae family, also called Quanxie or Quanchong. It first appears in Shucao Bencao of the Five Dynasties period. On the market there is also scorpion tail used medicinally; the tail is more toxic than the whole scorpion, so the dose of the tail is smaller than that of the whole scorpion.
Traditional Chinese medicine holds that scorpion is acrid in flavor, neutral in nature, and toxic, entering the liver meridian. Note here that the "liver" of Chinese medicine is not the same as the liver of modern anatomy. Recently a patient studied the herbs in a formula a Chinese-medicine physician had prescribed and, finding that they all entered the liver meridian, became distraught, fearing she had a major liver lesion; this is a misunderstanding of traditional Chinese-medicine theory. In fact, ordinary people need not care at all about meridian entry; meridian entry is merely a traditional way of describing the properties of herbs, neither scientific nor precise, and has only limited reference value.
Scorpion has the effects of dispelling wind and stopping spasms, unblocking the collaterals and stopping pain, and attacking toxins and dissipating nodules. It treats infantile convulsion, convulsions and spasms, facial deviation and hemiplegia caused by stroke, tetanus, rheumatic arthralgia, migraine and vertex headache, toothache, deafness, carbuncles and sores, scrofula and phlegm nodules, snake and insect bites, burns, rubella, and stubborn tinea.
Modern pharmacological research has found that scorpion has central nervous system effects such as anticonvulsant, antiepileptic, and analgesic actions. The venom of Buthus martensii strengthens myocardial contractility and slows the heart rate in isolated guinea pig hearts; it causes marked contraction of rabbit aortic strips, about one-fifth the strength of norepinephrine, and also has antithrombotic effects.
In addition, scorpion-tail extract has a relatively strong antitumor effect; preventive oral gavage of scorpion-tail extract at 500 mg/kg for 7 consecutive days can significantly reduce tumor weight in mice inoculated with sarcoma S180. Scorpion venom markedly prolongs survival in mice with Ehrlich ascites carcinoma and significantly inhibits human colorectal cancer cells. Whole-scorpion extract also markedly inhibits reticulum-cell sarcoma (SRS) and MA-737 breast cancer, markedly reducing DNA in these two tumor tissues. Crude whole-scorpion extract at 10 ug/ml and 1 ug/ml, after 48 and 72 hours, caused all cultured human cervical cancer (HeLa) cells to die and detach from the wall. Subcutaneous injection of scorpion venom in LA-795 lung adenocarcinoma-bearing mice also markedly inhibited the tumors and prolonged survival by about 29.2%.
But scorpion is also highly toxic. Scorpion venom is concentrated mainly in the tail; the tail is about six times more toxic than the whole scorpion. Scorpion venom can raise arterial blood pressure, slow the heart rate, cause arrhythmia, slow respiratory rate, and ultimately cause death from respiratory arrest in experimental animals.
There is a Chinese idiom, "as poisonous as snake and scorpion." In daily life, if a person bitten by a scorpion does not receive timely treatment, there can be a risk to life. Scorpion venom also has teratogenic effects; it can delay or eliminate ossification centers in the fetus, causing skeletal abnormalities, so pregnant women are prohibited from using scorpion or scorpion tail. Although scorpion venom is not mutagenic to human blood lymphocytes, it has a marked cytotoxic effect.
Therefore, in clinical use the dose of scorpion should not be too large. Usually only 2-5 g may be used in decoction, or it may be ground into powder and put into pills or powders at 0.5-1 g each time; the dose of scorpion tail is only one-sixth to one-third that of the whole scorpion. Scorpion must not only not be used in large doses but should not be used for long periods; generally, after using it for a while, one must stop for a period before using it again. In ancient times, when using scorpion, practitioners removed the tail; but the very thing that makes scorpion effective against disease is its venom, so removing the tail wastes the medicinal material.
Scorpion is mostly used together with centipede in a relationship called xiangxu (a Chinese-medicine term meaning that two herbs used together have a synergistic effect). Some scholars believe that 0.5 g of scorpion combined with 0.5 g of centipede is more effective than 10 g of scorpion or 10 g of centipede alone, though this claim lacks clinical data. But most Chinese-medicine classics hold that the safety and efficacy of the scorpion-centipede combination are both higher than using either alone. This may be related to the low LD50 values of scorpion and centipede; low doses of either can harm the human body, and using them together greatly reduces the required doses of both, making them safer.
The scorpion-centipede combination both anticancers and stops pain. There is an empirical formula for treating pain: 50 g of whole scorpion, 30 g of centipede (head and legs removed), and 100 g of Salvia (Danshen). Dry or roast all, grind into powder, mix with white sugar into a paste, and take with warm water, 10 g each time; it may also be made into pills for oral use. This formula has some effect in treating cancer pain, and the scorpion, centipede, and Salvia in it all have anticancer effects. I have also seen some folk physicians add strychnos (Maqianzi), musk (Shexiang), and borneol (Bingpian) to this formula to make painkillers for cancer pain. When using this formula, one should pair it with some qi-supporting decoctions, and with prolonged use one should observe changes in the patient's liver and kidney function.
Generally speaking, when taking herbs like scorpion and centipede internally, as long as the dose is controlled, poisoning usually does not occur. But individual variation always exists, so patients should closely observe changes in their bodies while taking the medicine. If symptoms such as arrhythmia, palpitations, pounding heart, cold sweats, shortness of breath, or skin allergy appear after taking the medicine, they should stop immediately and seek medical attention promptly for the physician to handle.
There is no specific treatment for scorpion poisoning. Acute poisoning from mistakenly taking a large amount of scorpion venom requires hospital treatment such as gastric lavage and fluid replacement. For milder poisoning, one may decoct licorice and mung bean into water and drink large amounts to promote rapid metabolism of the venom. Poisonous medicinal materials such as scorpion should not be placed where children can reach them, lest children mistakenly take them and be poisoned.