METHUSELAH ARCHIVE INGREDIENTS / BLOODROOT (SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS)

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

botanical
provenance:botanical
first introduced:1924
regulatory status:unregulated
context:Component of the red escharotic paste (with antimony trisulfide and zinc chloride) in the external half of Harry Hoxsey's two-part cancer treatment, sold from his first clinic in Taylorville, Illinois in 1924. Caustic bloodroot/zinc-chloride pastes for treating skin lesions predate Hoxsey by decades (Memorial Sloan Kettering's About Herbs monograph and the American Cancer Society's historical account both describe the tradition), so Hoxsey's paste sits within an older escharotic practice rather than originating it.
MECHANISM CLAIMED
Applied directly to a tumor, the red paste was said to be 'selectively destructive of cancerous tissue,' killing malignant cells while sparing the surrounding skin.
MECHANISM ACTUAL
Bloodroot's sanguinarine alkaloid is caustic and cytotoxic to any cell it contacts, not selectively to malignant tissue; combined with zinc chloride (itself an escharotic) the paste chemically burns whatever tissue it touches. The American Cancer Society's historical summary of the treatment states plainly that the paste 'can severely burn, disfigure and scar the skin,' and Elston's 2005 dermatologic-history review of escharotic agents (J Am Acad Dermatol) situates Hoxsey's paste within the same non-selective caustic tradition as Fred Mohs's chemosurgery paste. (The bibliographic record, confirmed via PubMed, is the basis for this framing; the full article text was not independently fetched, so the specific comparison to Mohs's own margin-control technique is not drawn here.)
INTERVENTIONS USING IT
EXTERNAL REFERENCES
NOTES

Bloodroot is a caustic, alkaloid-bearing root long used in escharotic (tissue-burning) folk and fringe-medical preparations for skin lesions, including cancer. In Harry Hoxsey’s external paste it was combined with zinc chloride and antimony trisulfide and marketed as able to selectively destroy cancerous tissue. The paste does destroy tissue on contact, real and visible, which is precisely what lent the claim its surface plausibility, but the destruction is non-selective: it burns healthy skin along with any tumor, and the underlying disease, if the growth was in fact malignant, is untouched beneath the surface.