Preservative for Big Swede's St. John's Wort Skin Cancer Remedy

[HappyHomesteader]

Hi Everyone, I am an amateur herbalist in Eastern Ontario, Canada. I am making a remedy from Heinerman’s Encyclopedia of Healing Herbs and Spices. It is the remedy shared by “Big Swede” that had a good success rate for basal cell carcinoma. Briefly, the recipe contains St. John’s Wort mixed with pure turpentine, white wine and olive oil and set out in the sun for 10 days, put in a bain Marie for an hour, strained and then more St. John’s Wort added and then five days in the sun.

My question is regarding the preservative recommended for this recipe, which “gum benzoin” or a tincture of gum benzoin. I do not have any of this tree resin available, nor do the local health food stores that I like to support have it. I wonder if either of the following would be a decent replacement: 1) I could tincture some myrhh, which I happen to have on hand OR 2) I have some Vitamin E capsules I could pierce and pour into the solution once it is completed.

Has anyone on the forum made this recipe? Do you have any alternatives for the preservative, or should I just order it online?

Any assistance anyone can offer would be much appreciated! I am making this for a friend of mine who has possible skin cancer/pre-cancerous lesions on his arms to see if it will help him.

Thanks so much! Signed, HappyHomesteader

[Barbara BlaneyStudent]

Hi Happy Homesteader!

I realize this post is older, but I was curious as to whether you found an answer anywhere to your question….did the remedy work for your friend?

I have recently read about using a simple eggplant tincture (Just soak eggplant in acv for about 5 days) for skin cancer spots.

My mom recently had a few spots removed from her face and has a few more suspicious ones they want to remove in about 2 months. She is going to try to the eggplant tincture and see if she can keep from having to go through more surgery.

[HappyHomesteader]

Hi Bama2,

I was very happy to see you reply here. I can give a bit of an update. After some research, I was able to find out that “gum benzoin” is Frankincense. I did not have Everclear on hand to tincture this resin. In the end, I used some Vitamin E from capsules, which is what I think I said I was going to do.

In the end, my friend, although he had expressed interest in the remedy, was not willing to put it on his lesions on his arm. The reason was not totally clear. I think he was concerned about it staining things, like his sheets, but I did explain that it could be put on thinly after waking.

He doesn’t have any exposure to herbal medicines, so perhaps that ended up being why. I guess you can lead a horse to water…..

On the up side, know another woman with persistent psoriasis on her scalp that nothing else had worked for. As this skin cancer treatment from Big Swede was also supposed to be a remedy for that, i made up some for her and she reported some months later that it had, indeed, cured that problem, but that it required her to continue using it. That led me to believe that perhaps she is over shampooing her hair or that one of her hair products may be to blame, so that is where I have left it with her, to explore that possibility.

I wish you the best with you mother. I have not heard of that use of eggplant. Please feel free to report back!

Kind regards,

Happy Homesteader

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