TCM Characteristic Therapy: Medicinal Eggs
Chinese folk has long had the crafts of pickling and boiling eggs. Traditional foods made by these methods—salted duck eggs, century eggs, tea eggs, and marinated eggs—are all delicious. Of course, eating too much pickled food like salted duck eggs is very harmful, because their nitrite content is high and they can easily cause cancer. One should also be careful not to eat lead-containing century eggs; lead-containing century eggs can easily cause elevated blood lead levels and endanger human health.
Besides making delicious egg products by these methods, our ancestors also, through practice, invented a traditional therapy that is relatively safe and easily accepted by patients: "medicinal eggs." As the name suggests, medicinal eggs are egg products soaked or boiled in medicine.
Medicinal eggs can treat many diseases. Preparing medicinal eggs is generally used to treat chronic diseases that are difficult to heal quickly. For example, folk practice uses boy's urine to soak chicken or duck eggs; once the shell softens, the eggs are boiled and eaten to treat asthma. There are also chicken or duck eggs soaked in walnut twigs, Cephalotaxus, or Camptotheca fruit to treat cancer.
Besides soaking eggs, one can also boil or steam eggs together with medicinal materials; once the eggs are cooked, remove the medicinal materials and eat only the eggs. For example, boiling cantharis (Mylabris), langdu (Euphorbia fischeriana), or toad together with chicken or duck eggs; after cooking, remove the highly toxic cantharis, langdu, and toad, and eat only the boiled eggs to treat cancer. This method ensures medication safety while having a certain therapeutic effect, and because what is taken is an egg rather than medicine, it is truly an ideal treatment for patients who fear bitterness and cannot take medicine.
When using medicine to soak or boil eggs, one may use a single herb or a compound formula. Some folk remedies boil eggs with walnut twigs, cantharis, or toad—these use a single herb. But cancer is not easy to treat, and a single herb sometimes does not have the desired effect; using a compound formula to soak or boil eggs may work better.
The renowned Chinese TCM anti-cancer expert Professor Duan Fengwu included this method of preparing medicinal eggs in his Duan Fengwu's Collected Anti-Tumor Proven Prescriptions. For example, his "Sanz'e Danshi Egg" formula is a typical compound egg-soaking formula: sanleng (Sparganium) 90g, ezhu (Curcuma zedoaria) 90g, danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza) 120g, zaojiaoci (Gleditsia thorn) 120g, rice vinegar 80 ml. Add appropriate water to these five herbs, decoct to a concentrated liquid, soak 7 chicken eggs (the liquid should just cover the eggs), and soak continuously for 7 days (until the eggshell softens). When taking, gently scoop out with a large spoon and steam until cooked. Eat 1 egg each time, once daily; severe cases may take twice daily.
Professor Duan's formula is certainly not the ideal anti-cancer egg formula; ideally, different patients should use different formulas for more targeted treatment. I cite Professor Duan's formula only to introduce how elderly physicians in the past prepared medicinal eggs.
Nowadays, the TCM community has made much greater progress in researching TCM anti-cancer therapy than before, and we can develop better formulas for soaking medicinal eggs. The methods of elderly physicians are worth learning from, but anti-cancer formulas must be further innovated to achieve safer and better efficacy.
This method of taking medicine via medicinal eggs is more easily accepted by patients than traditional decoction and pill preparation, especially for asthma or cancer children who cannot take medicine by conventional methods—medicinal eggs can completely replace pills or decoctions.