Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic outbreaked and raged across the world, threatening the safety of human life worldwide. Scientists from various countries are working hard to develop various medicines to stop the spread of the Novel coronavirus. Among them, experts on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) used Chinese medicines “Lianhua Qingwen Capsule” and “Clearing lung and expelling toxin soup” to fight against the virus and save the lives of infected people, which achieved very positive clinical observation results. In the above two medicines, there is one kind of mineral medicine–gypsum.
The history of Chinese medicine in China is long and profound. Chinese medicinal materials are divided into three categories according to raw materials: Plants, minerals and animals. Mineral medicine has been used to treat diseases for more than 2000 years. There are more than 670 kinds of medicinal materials in the “Shen Nong’s Materia Medica” in the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 BC–220 AD), including 46 kinds of mineral medicines; in the book of “The Treatise on Typhoid Miscellaneous Diseases” by Zhong-jing Zhang, there are 21 kinds of mineral medicines and a total of 58 kinds of prescriptions containing minerals; there are 1892 kinds of Chinese medicinal materials recorded in the “Compendium of Materia Medica” of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), of which 265 kinds of mineral medicines accounted for 14% of medicines documentaed. Commonly used mineral medicines are shown in Table 1.
Table 1.
The efficacy of some mineral medicines.
| Efficacy | Heat-clearing and Detoxifying | Eliminating Phlegm and Expectorant lung | Cough-cold and Qi-deficiency | De-dampness and anti-diarrhea | Hemostasis | Dispelling and eliminating dampness | Warming the wind kidney and inducing diuresis | Eliminating phlegm and diminishing swelling | Sedative and antispasmodic | Ulceration and toothache cure | Sterilization |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Natural element | Copper, sulfur | Gold, silver | Silver, copper, mercury, sulfur | ||||||||
| Oxide | Lead-oxide | Arsenic, pyrolusite, lithargyrum, lead-oxide | Limonite | Limonite, hematite | Magnetite | Pyrolusite, hematite, magnetite | Hematite | Arsenic, pyrolusite, lithargyrum, lead-oxide | |||
| Sulfide | Realgar, orpiment, galena, cinnabar | Galena, bornite | Realgar, orpiment | Cinnabar | Cinnabar | Cinnabar | Realgar, orpiment, galena, arsenopyrite, tinstone | ||||
| Halide | Halite | Halite, chlorite | Carnallite, fluorite | Fluorite | |||||||
| Carbonate | Hydrocerussite, calcite | Azurite | Stalactite | Heteroclas | Calcite, dolomite, calamine | Azurite | Stalactite, calamine | Azurite, hydrocerussite | |||
| Sulfate | Gypsum, thenardite, chalcanthite | Chalcanthite | Gypsum | Melanterite, alunite | Melanterite, chalcanthite, alunite | Gypsum, thenardite, | Thenardite | Gypsum | Gypsum | Melanterite, alunite | |
| Silicate | Talc | Vermiculite, quartz | Talc, muscovite, kaolinite, montmorillonite | Zeolite, kaolinite, muscovite, gypsum | Talc, hornblende, quartz | Kaolinite | Hydromica, vermiculite, quartz | Talc, montmorillonite | |||
| Other | Borax, niter | Borax | Mammalian skeletal fossils | Niter | Borax, niter | Mammalian skeletal fossils | Borax |
Note: after Yan WD, Xu SG, Hu RB, Guo J, Lin BL. 2020. China Mining News. Application of mineral resources in medical and health industry (in Chinese).
Minerals are widely used in Chinese medicine, classified according to efficacy:
Heat-clearing and detoxifying minerals, including: Gypsum, thenardite, chalcanthite, borax, niter, calcite, hydrocerussite, halite, realgar, orpiment, cinnabar, etc. For example, gypsum is an important ingredient in “Lianhua Qingwen Capsule ”, which play an important role in the treatment of COVID-19.
Hemostatic minerals include: Limonite, hematite, kaolinite, muscovite, chalcanthite, kalinite, cinnabar, calcite, dolomite, mammalian skeletal fossils, etc.
Minerals that eliminating phlegm and diminishing swelling include: Pyrolusite, hematite, magnetite, cinnabar, pyrite, carnallite, fluorite, thenardite, borax, etc.
Bactericidal and insecticidal minerals include: Realgar, orpiment, galena, arsenopyrite, kalinite, talc, mercury, sulfur, etc.
At present, geological work is at a turning point. The geologists, especially mineralogists, must also keep up with the needs of society and study new uses of minerals. In this regard, Professor You-you Tu distilled the artemisinin from traditional Chinese medicine to extract medicines for the treatment of “malaria” for the benefit of mankind. The geologists should also have such thoughts and ideas.
Contact
China Geology Editorial Office, Development and Research Center of China Geological Survey
Address: No. 45 Fuwai Street, Xicheng District, Beijing 100037, P.R. China
Tel: +86-10-58584239 Email: chenxijie@cags.ac.cn
(by Xi-jie Chen, Li-qiong Jia, Zi-guo Hao, Ting Jia)