Sulfur powder, one of the TCM solutions for psoriasis

What is sulfur powder(Liu Huang)?
Medicinally it refers to the powdered form of mineral native sulfur or sulphur. In China it is mainly produced in Shanxi, Shandong, Shaanxi, Henan and other places. But the native sulfur is not suitable for direct use medicinally. After the excavation, it needs to heat and melt in order to remove the impurities. Another way to get this drug is by processing the sulfur-containing minerals. Please note that the raw sulfur is for external application only and for oral administration it needs to be cooked with tofu in the first place and then placed in the shade to dry.

Its crystal structure is orthorhombic. Crystal is in the shapes of cone cylinder, slab column, clintheriform, or needle cylinder. The aggregates present dense or porous lumps, sinter, cryptocrystalline earthy block, hull, or film. The color is yellow, honey yellow, brownish yellow, or mixed with gray, black, green, or red because of the impurities contained. Crystal face is with adamantine luster and fracture surface is nearly transparent to translucent, and with turpentine or grease-like luster. Hardness is 1 to 2. Relative density is from 2.05 to 2.08. It is brittle, fragile, and easily cracked when heated. The ignition point is 270 ℃ and the flame is blue when it is on fire and emit a pungent odor that smells like rotten eggs. It is soluble in carbon disulfide, turpentine, kerosene, but insoluble in water, hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid. 

Sulfur powder benefits
Today sulfur or sublimed sulfur powder can be used for a number of purposes, such as to keep snakes away, to help hair growth, to make explosive, to prevent hair loss, to fumigate Chinese herbs, to kill bed bugs, chiggers, dog mange, etc. And the health benefits of pharmaceutical grade sulfur cannot be underestimated. For example, Psoriasis is an auto-immune skin disorder and currently there is no cure for it. But sulfur powder seems to be one of promising part in the psoriasis treatment solutions. It is quite interesting to look at its healing properties from the point of view of tradition Chinese medicine, which defines it as the "fire extractive" and it is first mentioned in the beginning of the famous Nineteen Medicaments of Mutual Antagonism. The reason behind this is twofold. First, it has a short-term effect on heating up the body and regaining strength quickly right after the oral administration. No wonder it was once used as the basic ingredient in making pills of immortality by Taoist alchemists of ancient China.

And secondly, herbalists consider it as hot in nature, which is really intuitive since it is a volcanic mineral that forms during volcanic eruption. And it deserves that name because in theory it contains the powerful heat of volcano. On the contrary, the psoriatic lesions can be deemed as ice. As a result, the ice of psoriasis can be melted by the fire of sulfur. Of course this is not a scientifically proven theory but at least it provides another perspective to look at this embarrassing skin condition.