Herb Lore

Chinese herbalism in 1920s Oakland: Fong Wan's own book of herbs, cases and cookery, published from his Tenth Street office at a time when practising it got him prosecuted — and acquitted.

Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each fact links straight to the page it comes from.

  1. Cancer, in this book's theory, is a volcanic eruption inside the body. The Chinese explanation offered here is entirely one of poisoned blood: when one of the five vital organs fails, "the blood in that organ becomes poisoned, and heat is generated the same as when a volcanic eruption occurs on the earth." A cancer anywhere therefore proves that some vital organ is at fault. Read it in the book →
  2. The treatment aimed to make a cancer grow faster, so that it would burst and leave. Where the blood is poor and the growth slow, the book prescribes nourishing herbs so that "the cancer or growth will develop quickly and come out" — external applications being used to "draw it to a head, and help it to ripen, and to break out." Read it in the book →
  3. A selling point in 1930: pain relief with no cocaine and no morphine. Having explained that cleansed blood means subsided inflammation and therefore no pain, the book closes the argument with its boast: "In this way, pain is overcome by Chinese Herbal Remedies without resort to Cocaine, Morphine, or any other drug." Read it in the book →
  4. The book scoffs at the American hunt for a single cure for cancer. "The Chinese do not believe, as do the Americans, in the possibility of discovering some one thing, such as serum, surgical X-Ray, or application of electricity to cure all kinds of cancer, regardless of location." Of the three it ranks electricity worst: "Serum and radium are not so harmful as electric-". Read it in the book →
  5. A testimonial in which the cancer obligingly bursts on schedule. Frank Duarte reports gaining eight pounds in three weeks, after which "the cancer broke and came ou by itself, thus making another operation unnecessary" — the printed proof of the book's ripen-and-draw-out doctrine, leaving his face "smooth, with scarcely a scar." Read it in the book →
  6. Tumour or cancer? The difference was whether you could see it. The definition given is purely one of visibility: a tumour is "a growth located inside the body, which cannot be seen from the outside," while a cancer forms beneath the skin and develops above it, "its size being an inch or more in diameter." Read it in the book →
  7. He had his tonsils out for a pain in his side — and drew the line at his teeth. R. S. Craig's doctors disagreed about his swollen right side: some said gall stones, while "others thought that my teeth and tonsils were at the root of the trouble and were poisoning my system." The tonsils went; five weeks later the pain had not abated, so "I refused to sacrifice my teeth." Read it in the book →
  8. "Blood Disorders" and a blood test three plus positive. An Alameda man dates his "Blood Disorders" to 1915 and reports that "My blood test was three plus positive, showing that it was very heavily charged with impurities"; a year after the herb course, a repeat test read negative, which he offers as proof of purification. Read it in the book →
  9. Witnesses signed with their trades and addresses, and invited strangers to look them up. C. W. Sempier ends his account of egg-sized lumps in his legs by vouching for himself professionally: "For 20 years I have been a solicitor for the large daily papers about the bay." Another testimonial gives a street number outright — "Present address, 115 South River, San Jose, Cal." Read it in the book →
  10. One chapter's contents run from excessive fat and epilepsy to falling hair and poison oak. The miscellaneous chapter promises testimonials on "Numbness, Prostate Gland, Headaches, Excessive Fat, Epilepsy, Pleurisy, Meningitis, St. Vitus Dance," plus falling hair, running sores, hay fever and poison oak — twenty-odd complaints in twenty-two pages. Read it in the book →
  11. A travelling salesman took a fortnight of herb tea every spring as kidney maintenance. O. L. Johnson, on the road across the state day after day, treats the herbs as preventive servicing: "every spring I take one or two weeks of the FONG WAN HERB TREATMENT and thus keep my kidneys in good shape." After eleven years, he adds, "he has become my friend as well as my healer." Read it in the book →
  12. Poison oak at a church camp: "My friends fairly whitewashed me with soda". A Berkeley man caught a severe case in 1922 while at the seven-day Conference of the Presbyterian Young People at San Anselmo, and his companions coated him in bicarbonate before he tried anything else. Read it in the book →
  13. Curing poison oak was beneath the herbalist's notice — so a customer testified for him. Chester Lawrence explains that Fong Wan "accomplishes so many big things that he doesn't consider the drying up of a case of Poison Oak worthy of mention, but I do," and so offers his account of a powder that dried up two boys' rashes unbidden. Read it in the book →
  14. A rival San Francisco herbalist looked at her boils and pronounced them cancers. Y. T. Jones consulted another practitioner first: "He looked at the boils and said they were cancers, and that he was doubtful whether they could be cured." Discouraged, she crossed the bay to Oakland instead — a glimpse of a competitive herbalist trade around the bay. Read it in the book →
  15. Patients ordered herbs by post and boiled them on their own stoves. Mrs. Charles P. Williams, housebound with a swollen face and burning skin, never made the trip: "I immediately sent to him and began to drink the herb tea. I cooked my own herbs at home." Another testimonial comes from Salida, Colorado. Read it in the book →
  16. Fear of the surgeon runs through nearly every testimonial. A major of the U.S. Air Reserves with a hernia and a poisoned stomach records the standard advice and his refusal: "but I thought it too dangerous to risk an operation in my condition, so I made up my mind to try the FONG WAN HERBS." Mrs. Phillips likewise had been told her gall stones were "incurable without an operation." Read it in the book →
  17. Catarrh was believed to sit in the head only because the lumps fall out there. The book relocates the disease: thick mucus forms in "chunks" that "drop into the mouth and throat. For this reason, people look upon catarrh as having its seat in the head." Hence "Herbs for catarrh must be so compounded as to cleanse the blood, the lungs, and the head" — untreated, it was said to end in ringing ears or deafness. Read it in the book →
Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Herb Lore (1927) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.