The Skin Ointment Has Formed [a Hole In The Australian Head]

2023 Author: Abraham Higgins | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 23:16

The skin ointment has formed [a hole in the Australian head]

A 55-year-old resident of the Australian city of Brisbane developed a 2.5-centimeter hole in his right temple on his head after using an ointment (black balm) for several months that he hoped would cure him of skin cancer, reportedly in the Medical Journal of Australia.

A hole in the patient's temple formed from black ointment. Illustration from the Medical Journal of Australia. /

Black salve is used in alternative medicine as a treatment for damaged skin (including skin cancer), applied to moles and scars. As a result of regular use, a black scar forms on the skin surface, which subsequently subsides. Black ointments were popular in the early 1990s, but in 2004 they were classified as a counterfeit drug by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and measures were taken to ban their distribution in the United States.

It was only in 2012 that the Australian Medicines Administration (TGA) declared black balm unsuitable for treating skin lesions, but its distribution and use has not yet been banned. “There is no reliable scientific evidence that black or red balm can cure cancer,” said a TGA spokesman. However, the health ministry's warning does not stop the widespread use of black ointment in the country.

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The victim, hoping to cure skin cancer, used black balm for four months and did not seek medical help until a black "hole" 2.5 centimeters in diameter formed on his head. The ointment he used, also known as drawing salve, contained the alkaloid sanguinarine from the poisonous medicinal plant Potentilla erecta, or blood root, and zinc chloride.

To relieve severe headaches, the patient used narcotic painkillers, and doctors at Princess Alexandra Hospital, where he went last September, initially thought that surgery would be required, but after weighing the pros and cons, they decided that you can do without surgery. The patient was prescribed drugs and sent home, and after three months the hole in his temple was tightened.

"People use such ointments more often than we think," Dermatologist Erin McMeniman quoted the Daily Mail as saying. - Patients often hide this fact, and doctors discover cases that already have serious complications. As a rule, the tumor does not heal, and even after a year after using the ointment, it continues to grow under the scar formed as a result of the application of black balm."