Yejuhua (Wild Chrysanthemum Flower): Resolving Toxin and Dispelling Carbuncles
The Chinese herb Yejuhua is the dried capitulum of Chrysanthemum indicum L. (family Asteraceae), mainly produced in Guangxi, Hunan and Jiangsu. Traditional TCM holds that it is bitter and acrid in flavor and slightly cold in nature, entering the Liver and Heart meridians. It clears heat and resolves toxin, drains fire and pacifies the liver. Because it clears heat and resolves toxin, it can be used to treat boils, carbuncles and swellings, and sore and swollen throat; because it drains fire and pacifies the liver, it can be used to treat red, swollen and painful eyes, headache and dizziness.
Yejuhua is included in Wuwei Xiaoyin Yin (Five-Ingredient Detoxification Drink), a classic famous formula for treating heat-type carbuncles. Wuwei Xiaoyin Yin is composed of five heat-clearing and toxin-resolving herbs—Pugongying (Dandelion), Zihuadiding (Viola), Tiankuizi (Semiaquilegia), Yejuhua (wild chrysanthemum flower) and Jinyinhua (Honeysuckle flower)—and has the actions of clearing heat, resolving toxin, and dissipating boils. It mainly treats the early stage of boils with fever and aversion to cold, lesions the size of millet grains, hard and deep-rooted like iron nails, as well as carbuncles, ulcers and furuncles with redness, swelling, heat and pain, a red tongue with yellow coating, and a rapid pulse. Today it is often used for acute surgical infections such as acute mastitis and cellulitis, as well as for acute urinary tract infection, cholecystitis, pneumonia, epidemic encephalitis B, and other infectious diseases presenting with heat-toxin patterns.
This formula is also an important famous formula in TCM treatment of cancer. Wuwei Xiaoyin Yin can be widely used for various heat-toxin-type cancers; there are especially many published cases in which Wuwei Xiaoyin Yin was the principal formula in a compound prescribed for cancers at different sites. Among the effective cancer cases I have published, several patients were treated with a plan based mainly on Wuwei Xiaoyin Yin.
In addition, Bencao Tuichen records a formula for treating abscesses of the yang-type in the ear, nose, throat and oral cavity: 48 g of Yejuhua, 48 g of Pugongying, 30 g of Zihuadiding, 30 g of Lianqiao (Forsythia), and 30 g of Shihu (Dendrobium); one dose daily, decocted in water and taken in three divided doses. This formula can treat many abscesses and polyps in ENT and oral diseases.
TCM holds that Yejuhua drains fire and pacifies the liver; in reality this is because Yejuhua lowers blood pressure. Dizziness and headache caused by hypertension are, in TCM theory, dizziness and headache due to ascending liver yang, so herbs that drain fire and pacify the liver are used. Yejuhua is an important herb for draining fire and pacifying the liver. When using it to lower blood pressure, it may be drunk alone as tea, or combined with Juemingzi (Cassia seed), Xiakucao (Prunella spike), Mimenghua (Buddleja flower), Jinyinhua, Gouteng (Uncaria vine), Bohe (mint) and Yumixu (maize silk). In the past there was a Chinese patent medicine called Juming Jiangya Pian (Chrysanthemum-Cassia Blood-Pressure-Lowering Tablet), a tablet made from Yejuhua and Juemingzi in a 4:1 ratio, used to treat essential hypertension and chronic nephritic hypertension.
However, Yejuhua has a laxative side effect, so TCM holds that those with spleen-stomach deficiency-cold should not use it. Yejuhua is of very low toxicity: the LD50 of Yejuhua injection in mice is about 10 g/kg by injection, while the common clinical dose for adults is 10–15 g, far below that value. Apart from an occasional laxative effect, there are not many reports of side effects of Yejuhua. Yejuhua is also one of the herbal teas commonly used by ordinary people; drinking more wild chrysanthemum tea in summer helps prevent boils in patients prone to them.