December 17, 2025
Secret Herb Paste Reported Effective for Burns
AP NEWS ARCHIVE Sep. 5, 1987 1:14 PM ET
BEIJING (AP) _ A doctor in Beijing has successfully treated more than 1,000 burn patients using a secret prescription of traditional Chinese medical herbs, an official report said Saturday.
Xu Rongxiang, 29, of the Beijing Guangming Traditional Chinese Medicine Burn Research Center, began experimenting with Chinese medicine in treating burn patients in 1979 when he was a second-year student at the Qingdao Medical College, the newspaper Health News (Jiankang Bao) said.
His family had been practicing traditional Chinese medicine for generations, and Xu improved upon the family's secret remedy in developing his treatment, the paper said.
The medicinal paste, while keeping sweat and other skin glands unimpeded, kills bacteria, liquefies dead tissue and helps the burn to heal, the newspaper said. It added that the treatment was most successful on first- and second-degree burns.
The prescription, which Xu patented in December, also can be used to treat electrical and caustic soda burns and ulcers, the paper said.