Java brucea

Chronic dysentery with foul bloody mucus stools, tenesmus, and heat signs that has not cleared with milder heat-clearing herbs

Stubborn warts or corns that resist freezing or salicylic acid, in a patient who can protect the surrounding skin

Cancer patient on chemotherapy where the oncology team is using the oil emulsion to support response and reduce chemotherapy side effects

Overview. Brucea javanica is a shrub or small tree of the quassia family, native from southern China through Southeast Asia to northern Australia. The ripe dried fruit, in practice the intensely bitter seed kernel, is ya dan zi, a cold and toxic drug reserved for dysentery, malaria, and warts. It entered the Chinese materia medica late, in the Qing dynasty, as a specific for chronic dysentery. In modern China the seed oil is made into an emulsion used as an adjunct in cancer care.

Clinical Notes. This is a restricted, low-dose herb. The kernels are never decocted alone: the quassinoids irritate the gut lining and a tea cannot be dosed safely. The classical method is to swallow the shelled kernels whole after meals, wrapped in longan aril or in gelatin capsules.

Chinese Medicine Profile. Temperature: cold, toxic. Taste: bitter. Channels: Large Intestine, Liver. Actions: Clears heat and resolves toxicity; Stops dysentery, especially chronic damp-heat dysentery with blood and pus; Checks malaria (intermittent fever); Applied externally, corrodes warts, corns, and fleshy growths.