Using Toxic Herbs Is Too Risky: Do Not Try It Lightly

News reports of patients dying from self-administered Chinese herbal poisoning appear from time to time. Two years ago, a patient was bitten by a dog but did not go to the hospital for treatment; his sister gave him some Mylabris (banmao), and the patient died of poisoning. Cantharidin is highly toxic, and reports of death from taking unprocessed Mylabris are common, yet still many patients and folk practitioners use Mylabris on their own.

I once met a brash, young TCM enthusiast who always boasted that he dared to give patients more than ten Mylabris at once, as if to prove his great skill and nerve. He later poisoned a patient to the point of tubular epithelial cell shedding in the kidney; because he lacked modern medical knowledge, he actually fooled the patient by saying necrotic tumor tissue was being expelled in the urine, delaying rescue and causing the patient's death. Truly, the ignorant are fearless.

I have also seen many people using toxic herbs on their own—raw Banxia, raw Fuzi, raw Chuanwu, raw Maqianzi, raw Tenghuang—and with these herbs, if detoxification is not done properly, only a trace amount is enough to kill. If we pay attention to news on this, we will see such reports frequently.

Most Chinese-medicine fatalities do not occur in normal medical practice but when patients and their families use medicines on their own, or when some safety-unconscious folk practitioners dispense medicine. After these people use the drugs, patients develop poisoning that they often cannot detect in time or handle effectively, so the patient cannot be rescued promptly after poisoning, ultimately producing tragedy.

Some veteran TCM doctors did indeed use highly toxic drugs to treat disease and cured a few patients. But their medication was not safe; patients often died of poisoning while under their treatment. In the past this was rarely held responsible, but in our era it is completely different, so formally trained TCM physicians will not abuse highly toxic drugs. No doctor can use poisons with perfect safety; when highly toxic drugs treat disease, the dead are many and the living few. Inexperienced patients and their families often only see the successful cases in a doctor's medical records, without thinking how many poisoning deaths lie behind them.

The state now legislates to control highly toxic drugs such as arsenic, mercury, Tenghuang, raw Fuzi, raw Chuanwu, raw Banxia, Mylabris, Maqianzi, Daji (Euphorbia pekinensis), Yuanhua (Daphne genkwa), and Xueshangyizhihao (Aconitum brachypodum). The Chinese patent medicines containing these ingredients have already undergone processing and are much safer than raw use. Such legislation aims to ensure medication safety and safeguard people's health.

So under current legal conditions, the historical case records of treating disease with these highly toxic drugs now have only research and literature value, not clinical practical value. When you see such literature, do not impulsively rush to try it. Medical treatment must ensure safety and efficacy; human life is at stake, and some risks cannot be taken.