"Properties and Classification of Mercury between Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Alchemy", in AION (Phil) 36 (2014), pp.17-48 (table of contents + abstract) (original) (raw)

Exploring the ancient chemistry of mercury

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

This paper explores the chemistry of mercury as described in ancient alchemical literature. Alchemy’s focus on the knowledge and manipulation of natural substances is not so different from modern chemistry’s purposes. The great divide between the two is marked by the way of conceptualizing and recording their practices. Our interdisciplinary research group, composed of chemists and historians of science, has set off to explore the cold and hot extraction of mercury from cinnabar. The ancient written records have been perused in order to devise laboratory experiments that could shed light on the material reality behind the alchemical narratives and interpret textual details in a unique perspective. In this way, it became possible to translate the technical lore of ancient alchemy into the modern language of chemistry. Thanks to the replication of alchemical practices, chemistry can regain its centuries-long history that has fallen into oblivion.

Histories of Mercury in Medicine Across Asia and Beyond. Dagmar Wujastyk (ed.). Special Volume of Asiatische Studien / Etudes Asiatiques. 2015 VOLUME 69 · ISSUE 4

In this interdisciplinary multi-author volume, scholars from diverse areas of research (European history, Indology, Sinology, Japanology, Tibetology, Oriental studies, anthropology) will examine the uses of mercury in a number of medical and alchemical traditions from the early modern period to the present. Drawing upon the primary textual sources of each respective tradition (European, Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Arab and Persian) as well as on colonial and trade company records, the authors will explore why, when and how mercury was used in the different medical traditions. A comparison of processing methods, recipes and applications will serve to identify possible links between the various medical and alchemical systems and to create a detailed and comprehensive picture of connections both in trade as also in medical theory and techniques. Contributions will further examine the role of the shifting colonial networks of trade and the inner workings of European markets in the development and global transmission of mercury products, locating the different medical traditions and their cultural, political and economic contexts within a global history of iatrochemistry.

Perfect medicine: Mercury in Sanskrit Medical Literature

This article gives an overview of the earliest uses of mercury in classical South Asian medicine up to the nineteenth century, tracing and discussing important stages in the development of mercury processing. The use of unprocessed mercury might date back to the period when the oldest Indian medical compendia, the Carakasaṃhitā and the Suśrutasaṃhitā, were composed (c. first to third century CE). It is certain that medical compounds containing apparently unprocessed mercury were used by the time the works ascribed to Vāgbhaṭa, the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā and the Aṣṭāṅgasaṃgraha, were written (c. early seventh century CE). However, with one notable exception, it was only from the thirteenth century onwards that ways of processing mercury were developed or adopted from alchemical sources in ayurvedic medicine. Elaborate procedures were applied for the purifying and calcining of mercury and for extracting mercury from cinnabar. Through these procedures, mercury was meant to be perfected, i.e. made safe for human consumption as well as efficacious as a remedy. By the sixteenth century, the use of processed mercury had become standard in ayurvedic medicine for a great number of diseases and purified mercury was considered extremely potent and completely safe: a perfect medicine.

Medicinal Mercury in Early Modern Portuguese Records: Recipes and Methods from Eighteenth-Century Medical Guidebooks

Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 2015

This chapter will present and explicate rare information regarding circumstances and techniques for the application of medicinal mercury in the Portuguese medical context during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Through the use of Portuguese medical texts (including translated excerpts), the chapter will provide insight into how early modern Portuguese practitioners processed and employed mercury to treat various ailments. Of interest, too, will be that these remedies were developed at several disparate locations throughout the Portuguese imperial world (China, India, Angola, Brazil, and Portugal), and often drew upon, and blended, indigenous medical substances from the region where each remedy originated. Regarding the use of mercury in South Asian medicine, medical scholars have noted that, from the sixteenth century onwards, much of the intra-Asian (and global) mercury trade was conducted through Portuguese merchants and agents. This work asserts that Portuguese merchants...

Early Persian Medical Works on Antisyphilitic Mercury Medicines

Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, 2015

In this chapter, I examine the use of mercury with a special focus on its application as an ingredient in antisyphilitic medicines and therapies in a selection of medieval Persian scientific texts that represent either the earliest or the most influential works of their genre. Works examined include the earliest Persian pharmacological work, written by Abū Manṣūr Muwaffaq between 965 and 975 CE, which mentions mercury as a medicine against skin diseases and “killed mercury” (zībaq-i kušta)Since there is no generally accepted transliteration of Persian, the system of the Swiss library network IDS is used, which is based on the ISO standard. Vowels are transliterated with their premodern values ā, ī, ū, a, i, u (without consideringmaǧhūlvowels ē and ō); in modern pronounciation they are/a/,/i/,/u/,/a/,/e/,/o/respectively.as a poison; a general work on medicine written by Bahāʾ ad-Dawla Rāzī in 1501–2 CE, in which syphilis is described for the first time in Asia; a chapter from theǦāmi...

The Mercury Puzzle

Asian Medicine

In the last decades, Tibetan medicine has spread around the globe. From a Western point of view, Tibetan medicine is part of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (cam). In many Asian medicines, mercury sulphide is considered an important ingredient. Tibetan medicine is famous for its precious pills, many of which contain mercury sulphide in the form of an ash called tsotel (btso thal). In the Western, specifically in the European context, such ingredients are not accepted for human consumption. These legalities are discussed from the perspective of today’s pharmaceutical practice in Europe. Neither the law of medicinal products nor the food law allow such ingredients and place strict limits on residues of heavy metals. The cam community is also very cautious about any use of heavy metals. This article advocates that on the global level, the production and distribution of Tibetan medicines has to consider today’s modern pharmaceutical and biomedical environment. The formulas of Tib...