Anti-Cancer Herbs ⁽¹⁷¹⁾

Yougui Wan (Right-Restoring Pill) is a famous warming-tonifying formula from the Jingyue Quanshu (Complete Works of Zhang Jingyue). It consists of Shu Di Huang (Rehmanniae Radix Praeparata), Dang Gui (Angelicae Sinensis Radix), Shan Zhu Yu (Corni Fructus), Shan Yao (Dioscoreae Rhizoma), Gou Qi Zi (Lycii…

In 1974, Professor Zhang Mengnong, a renowned veteran TCM physician from Hubei Province, published a case report on using white goose blood (or white duck blood as a substitute if goose blood is unavailable) to treat gastric and esophageal cancer. Since then, other TCM physicians…

The Chinese soft-shelled turtle is all treasure: both turtle shell (biejia) and turtle blood (biexue) can be used as medicine, and both have antitumor effects. Besides antitumor action, turtle shell and turtle blood have other effects. This article mainly introduces the anticancer action of turtle…

Toad skin (chanpi) is the dried body, internal organs removed, of Bufo bufo gargarizans or Bufo melanostictus of the family Bufonidae. There is another medicinal material called toad slough (chanyi), which is the outermost cicada-wing-thin skin that the toad sheds by itself on thunderstorm days,…

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,…

Every May by the lunar calendar, pagoda tree flowers can be seen everywhere on the streets of Beijing. The Chinese scholar tree (Guo Huai) is one of the most common landscaping plants in Beijing; its streets and alleys are planted full of them. When the…

Huai Er (also called Huai E or Huai Ji) is a fungus that grows on trees such as the Chinese pagoda tree, the black locust, and the tall wingnut; its scientific name is Trametes robiniophila (Huai Shuan Jun), mainly distributed in North China and Shaanxi.

Xiao Ai Ping is a commonly used Chinese patent medicine. It comes in oral tablets (Xiao Ai Ping Pian) and syrup (Xiao Ai Ping Tangjiang), as well as an injection (Xiao Ai Ping Zhusheye); its ingredient in all forms is the black-bone vine (Wugu Teng).

Many people grow Madagascar periwinkle (changchunhua) on their balconies. It blooms almost year-round, hence the name "long-spring flower." It is an ornamental plant well suited to home cultivation, and it is also the raw material for one of the most famous chemotherapy drugs, vinblastine. Madagascar…

Purslane (Machixian, Portulacae Herba) is a common plant that is both food and medicine; wherever there is a vegetable garden, purslane grows. It is common not only in vegetable gardens but also in other fields and along roadsides. The ancients ate purslane, but nowadays, except…