Doctors in Chiayi County on Monday warned against using medicinal herbs without a prescription, after a woman who ingested wolfsbane ended up in Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital’s intensive care unit.
The woman, surnamed Chang (張), 61, had told her children to buy herbs from an apothecary for her muscle aches without seeing a doctor or a licensed Chinese medicine practitioner, said Lee Yi-ta (李易達), a cardiologist who treated her.
Chang felt some pain relief after taking the medicine that afternoon, then took another dose in the evening, Lee said.
Photo courtesy of Dalin Tzu Chi General Hospital
About one hour later, she was taken to hospital by her family after she began vomiting and experiencing heart palpitations, he said.
Lee said an electrocardiography showed that Chang had frequent atrial arrhythmia induced by aconite poisoning and she was immediately admitted to intensive care, where her condition was stabilized with medication.
Wolfsbane contains toxic levels of aconite and the hospital had recently treated another person who ingested it after his friend told him it could help with diabetes, Lee said.
Wolfsbane — which contains several dangerous alkaloids — is deemed to have medicinal properties in traditional Chinese medicine, said Liang Yu-chang (梁育彰), head of the hospital’s Pharmacology Department.
However, the tubers must be boiled for at least one hour before the toxins are neutralized to a safe level for human consumption, he said.
People should not experiment with herbs without consulting a licensed Chinese medicine doctor, Lee said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
RSS