Tinea versicolor treated with TCM herb calomel

What is calomel(Mercurous Chloride, Qing Fen)?
Medicinally it refers to the crystalline powder (Hg2Cl2) made from mercury, alum (or blue vitriol), salt and others by crystallization or sublimation. In China it is mainly produced in Hubei, Hunan , Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Guizhou. And it should be protected from light and used ground finely.

Calomel is white, silvery, and usually in the shape of snowflakes. It is light and easy to be twisted into white delicate powder by hand. In terms of medicinal quality, the preferred one is white, in bigger pieces, bring, in needle-like crystals, light, and with no silver beads. It is insoluble in water and acid. If heated on iron, it gradually becomes yellow, turns into smoke, and finally leaves no trace. If blended with potassium hydroxide solution, it dissolves out black mercurous oxide; if added in ammonia and the shaded, it becomes black.

What is calomel used for?
In the Western countries, calomel was a popular medicine for stimulating evacuation of the bowels, teething with babies, and killing bacteria in the nineteenth century. And in China it has a much longer history as a healing herb. As a matter of fact, minerals have long been an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine. Wu Shi Er Bing Fang (Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments), the earliest Chinese medical text unearthed in the famous Mawangdui Han Tombs in the eastern suburb of Changsha City, recorded 21 kinds of mineral drugs. And Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica, the first book on herbology in the world, documented 46 kinds of mineral drugs and classified them into top, medium and low-grade drugs. These records include mercury, calomel, cinnabar, arsenolite, realgar, and more.

Calomel-based preparations are traditionally used for scabies, syphilis, acne rosacea, neurodermatitis, and asthma. And the results were quite satisfactory, according to the report. What’s more, in recent years it was also used for some other diseases.

(1). More than 100 cases of body odor were treated with topical Hu Chou San (body odor powder), which consists of the same amount of calomel and Hua Shi Fen (talcum powder). And the result was good.

(2). 31 cases of tinea versicolor were ever treated with topical Han Ban San (tinea versicolor powder), which is composed of equal amount of calomel and Hai Piao Xiao (Cuttlefish Bone). And the result was satisfactory.

(3). Penile cancer was treated with the pills made of Hong Fen (Hydrargyri Oxydum Rubrum) 9g, calomel 6g, mercury 3g, and appropriate amount of red jujube fruit. The pills are as big as mung bean. The remedy is 10 pills a time and no more than 2 times a day.