Residents of Jinshicun village in China’s Hunan Province have discovered a rather crappy way to keep healthy. They’re actually drinking a revolting concoction of mashed cow dung and goat poop that they think is a miracle cure for cancer and other illnesses.
The villagers say they stumbled upon the medicine when an elderly local woman suffering from cancer woke up one day with a bizarre request – she asked her son to collect as much animal feces as possible. Her son complied, without the faintest idea of what was she was up to.
“I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer last January and despite going in and out of the hospital nothing was helping,” explained 66-year-old Ma Shuang. “And then I had a dream where a voice was telling me to mix the dung of a cow with the droppings of goats. When I woke, I instructed my son on what he had to do and although clearly thinking I had lost my mind, he went and did it anyway.”
Ma proceeded to dry all the dung and droppings out in the sun and crushed them into a powder. Then she added water to the powder and drank the concoction. Soon, she claimed that she ‘felt much better’. Although she hasn’t visited the hospital for any confirmation or follow-up examinations since she started taking the medicine, villagers just took her word for it.
The health craze soon caught on and all the villagers wanted to try the cure for themselves. The first to do it was 40-year-old Xian Li, who was suffering from a gynecological ailment. After drinking the miracle poo potion, she reported an improvement as well. “After hearing about how it had cured Ma, I started drinking her potion twice a day for three months. Now I am better and the reason for that is obvious,” she said.
As more and more villagers are adopting the miracle cure, Chinese doctors found it necessary to issue a warning. “Cow and goat dung was used in ancient Chinese times as a way to flush out heat and toxins,” admitted Liu Shaogui, a doctor at the Hunan University of Chinese Medicine. “However, those who try this method run the risk of bacterial infection and parasites if the dung is not properly treated.”
Chinese netizens have also criticized the cure and blasted the villagers for their ignorance. “Such heart wrenching news,” wrote one user. “I cannot believe that people in the 21st century and in a country that is the world’s second largest economy by GDP, people still treat cancer like this. Who would eat that if one had the money?”
Photos:CFP
Sources: Want China Times, Global Times
