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以毒为药：古代中国的医疗、文化与政治
毒物和药物看似对立，但翻开中国医学史，我们会发现毒物曾被如此广泛地用于治疗风寒、疼痛、瘟疫等多种疾病与日常养生。本书研究了在3-9世纪中国药学的形成期，医生、宗教人物、朝廷官员和非专业的士大夫如何使用有毒之药物来医治顽疾、强身厚生。通过聚焦汉语中“毒”字的概念是如何引导医者采取各种方法，将危险的毒物转化为灵丹妙药，作者清楚地揭示出毒物在中国传统医学和中古社会的重要地位。
本书讲述了汉末到初唐时期涉及毒药的医疗纷争和政治事件，彰显了“毒”对于当时人们如何感知自己的身体以及身体政治至关重要。作者还研究了中国古典药学中大量有毒的矿物、植物和动物制品，包括有剧毒的“百药长”附子和一度非常流行的五石散，展现了强效药在身体上如何产生作用，以及这种药效如何塑造了对药物及其治疗的疾病的知识。该书还发掘了古代中国对健康以及身体与有毒药物如何互动的不同理解方式，提醒我们关注药物流动的物质性，其真正的意义与效用并不能被归结为固定的内核，而是依具体的技术干预、社会政治状况与个人身体体验而变化。
本书讲述了汉末到初唐时期涉及毒药的医疗纷争和政治事件，彰显了“毒”对于当时人们如何感知自己的身体以及身体政治至关重要。作者还研究了中国古典药学中大量有毒的矿物、植物和动物制品，包括有剧毒的“百药长”附子和一度非常流行的五石散，展现了强效药在身体上如何产生作用，以及这种药效如何塑造了对药物及其治疗的疾病的知识。该书还发掘了古代中国对健康以及身体与有毒药物如何互动的不同理解方式，提醒我们关注药物流动的物质性，其真正的意义与效用并不能被归结为固定的内核，而是依具体的技术干预、社会政治状况与个人身体体验而变化。
265 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 24, 2022
This easy-to-read scholarly study charts Chinese medical history over the first millennium AD and the extraordinary, delusional fads for consuming toxic minerals such as cinnabar for their alleged life- and sex-enhancing effects - the dark side of Taoist alchemy. The study is on the short side and raises more questions than it answers.
September 19, 2021
Ancient healing
Very good written, its not definitely poisons, but ancient people tend to said these materials could do body harm and thus need further processing. This book more on history of ancient medicine and its commentary with modern medicines.
Very good written, its not definitely poisons, but ancient people tend to said these materials could do body harm and thus need further processing. This book more on history of ancient medicine and its commentary with modern medicines.
January 2, 2023
Ch1. Du 毒
Toxicity or potency. 3 meanings, all involve "Thickness" - heaviness, intensity, unconstrained growth
a) Grass (cao) + unvirtuous person (ai) - herb that causes harm
b) Fu (invasive plant), Grass (cao) + knife (dao) - poison that is used for hunting/warfare
c) Plant (life) + chong (insect)
d) Person stepping on a venomous animal - threats of dangerous creatures in nature
Like daoism, nature of yin-yang, duality. "The central idea underlying the poison-medicine paradox in China is transformation: no fixed distinctions exist; all things are subject to perpetual change. To harness poisons, therefore, one must grasp the techniques of judiciously transforming them into therapeutic agents" [p38]
-
"Among the myriad things in the world, there is nothing that cannot be a medicine" - Sun Simiao (7th century physician, King of Medicines)
- Chinese version of the dose makes the poison
- Dual nature of du: poison and medicine, like pharmakon which also means remedy or poison
- Aconite (fuzi) - "lord of the hundred drugs"
○ 0.2mg aconitine orally is poisonous, 3-5mg causes death
○ Characterized as great heating power - for cold maladies. Highly ritualized preparation
§ Use water that flows eastward, soak for 5 days and 5 nights, etc.
○
○ Frederic Obringer - Drogues et poisons en Chine ancienne et medievale (1997)
○ "For all things under heaven, nothing is more vicious than the poison of aconite. Yet a good doctor packs and stores it, because it is useful" - Masters of Huainan (2nd centure BC)
- "Honest words are unpleasant to hear but good for action; potent drugs are bitter to ingest but good for healing." - Zhang Liang, advisor to Liu Bang (1st emperor of Han 256-195 BCE)
Two key drivers for therapeutic use of poisons:
- 5th century compilation of pharmacology under Han, began to see medical specialization and classification of du
- 7th century Sui and Tang dynasties began to publish written works prolifically
f
Hard to separate medicine from religion in ancient times, both in Europe and Asia
- Daoism emerged in China for popularity of nourishing the body
- But just as with Europe, medicine/religion were inseparable - combat illness and pursue immortality
Chinese version of Maslow - 3 levels of classification in Divine Farmers' Almanac (Shennong Bencao Jing). Also parallel to Shulgin's 2x2 of organizing/disorganizing drugs for ill/well people
- 365 drugs, du is the defining criteria
- 120 higher level: do not possess du. Helping healthy reach immortality. Organizing / well
○ Highest level is prevention. "The sage only treats people who are not yet sick, not people who are already sick" - The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic
○ Aspiration of immortality - nourishing life. When the radius is so small, there is no sickness
- 120 Middle level: some possess due, some do not. Helping prevent illness / replenish weak body organizing / unwell
- 125 lower level: mostly possess du. Treat those who are sick. Disorganizing / unwell
Collected Annotations on the Classic of Materia Medica (Bencao jing jizhu 500 AD)
- Written by Tao Hongjing, who left government service to become a Daoist hermit
- Lived in a mountain and dedicated self to meditation, wrote this book
- 730 drugs, Combined Shennong Bencao Jing with 35 from other physicians. Of the 575 known
○ 22% possess du. 71% of du-possessing are in the bottom group, only 7% are in top level
○ Most are plants
○ But animals are the highest percentage of bottom group
-
-
- Plants
○ 4 types of aconite are listed
○ Badou (croton) - the bean from ba
○ Gouwen (gelsemium) - hooking of the throat
○ Banxia (pinellia) - the half summer
○ Langdang zi (henbane) - seed of derangement
○ Langdu (stellera)
- Animal
○ Niuhuang (yellow ox) - bovine gallstones
○ Longgu (dragon's bone) - fossilized animal bones
○ Zhenniao mao (feathers of zhen bird) - effectively counter snake poison. Alcohol with feathers dipped in can kill a person instantly
Ch 2. Transforming Poisons
- Poly-pharmacology approach from Shen Nong:
○ 1 lord + 2 ministers + 5 assistants, or 1 lord + 3 ministers + 5 assistants
○ Drug combination rooted in bureaucratic organization - influence of political through on medical writing, even at such an early stage of China - indicative of need for mass organization. Greatest invention of man
- Also classified poly-pharmacology based on relationship of drugs
○ Xiangxu: mutual need (e.g. DMT + MAOi)
§ Gouwen (gelsemium) + banxia (pinellia)
○ Xiangshi: mutual assistance (agonism)
§ Langdu (stellera) + soybeans - like cooking
○ Xiangwei: mutual fear - two-way
○ Xiangwu: mutual hatred - one-way
§ Longgu (dragon's bone) + niuhuang (bovine gallstones)
○ Xiangfan: mutual opposition - drugs are enemies of each other
§ Cihuang (orpiment) + hufen (barbarian powder)
○ Xiangsha: mutual killing (constraint of drug's power / antagonism)
§ Poison to fight a poison, e.g. snakebite
- Paozhi technique: roast and broil. Pao (roasting) + Zhi (meat on fire)
○ Raw drugs (unprocessed)
○ Cooked drugs (processed)
- At Han era: Drug sellers were seen as mystical, a marginalized group with adept occult knowledge
○ Tao Hongjing in Collected Annotations lamented the industrialization of medicine that came with specialization of labor - much nuance was lost and only 200 drugs left in use
○ Those who harvest drugs different from those who process - lost the eye for choosing good plants. Those who process different from those who sell, lost the eye for niche applications. Physicians then prescribe indiscriminately. In the past, the same person did all - knew which plants to pick, when to harvest, how to prepare
Ch 3. Fighting Poison with Poison
- 5th & 6th century, demonic sources of illness figured prominently
○ expressed in Daoist movements
○ "On the Origins and Symptoms of All Illnesses" (Zhubing Yuanhou Lun) in 610
- Sui period, "gu" poisoning thought to call anxiety and paranoia
○ Political responses to punish gu practitioners, who were mainly women (just like West)
○ Guizhu = demonic infestation
§ Gui = spirit, not necessarily bad. Like seeing ghosts or spirit of animals
§ In the context of medicine, almost always negative. Believed to be contagious
§ Originated from Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) with contagion from dead bodies - introduced a new series of funeral rites for burial
○ Gu seen as demonic spirits, practitioners punished - mainly women, like with Christianity
§ Physician He correlated gu with the seductive power of women
§ Hexagram for gu from i-ching:
□
§ Combination of upper = firm or mountain and lower = supple or wind
□
□
§ Women = supple force deluding firm beings
§ Link between women and shamanism traced back to Han era
□ "witches" - believe that women are more susceptible to external influences, put in trance
○ Gu vermin is both a malady and a curse: snake gu can be cured by centipede gu, centipede gu cured by toad gu, toad gu cured by snake gu, etc…
§ Yi du gong du: medicinal du attacks du
- End of Han period, rise of Daoism - Tianshi Dao (Way of the Celestial Masters)
○ Used healing as an effective way to recruit followers
○ Illness passed down through ancestors, was punishment. Moral concept of illness
○ Demons were the cause of sickness - one was named fuzi (9' tall, 3 faces, 1 eye)
§ Named after aconite - association of drugs with altered states
- Chao Yuanfang, chief medical officer of Sui dynasty (581-618)
○ 3 departments: Medicine, therapeutic exericse, incantation
○ Focused on daoyin ("guiding and pulling")
Ch 4. Medicines in Circulation
Tang dynasty 618-755 beginning of government regulation
- Newly Revised Materia Medica (Xinxiu Bencao) 1st government sponsored materia medica
○ 850 drugs, 115 new
- Imperial medical office (taiyu shu), palace drug service (shangyao ju), pharmacy (yaozang ju)
○ palace drug service the testing and regulatory arm - protect the emperor from poisoning
○ Incorrect preparation = hanging
○ Medicinal sellers punished if colluding to distribute poison, but not if unintentionally sold to a bad actor
○ 4 substances called out for use in killing
§ Zhendu: zhen bird poison
§ Yege: gelsemium
§ Aconite: wutou and fuzi
○ Established cultivation regions for growing medicinal plants (yaoyuan)
§ And regulations for transport by donkey (100 jin limit, 68kg)
- Also drugs contributed as tribute to emperor - sign of subservience
○ Shexiang (musk) - glandular secretion from musk deer, counteracts atropine
○ Leiwan (omphalia)
○ Hengshan (dichroa root), shuqi (dichroa leaf)
○ Shujiao (pepper of sichuan)
○ Fuzi (aconite)
After fall of Tang, no state-sponsored medical projects until 10th century - Northern Song (960-1127)
- Difference: Northern song used printing, Tang literature was all hand-written
Ch. 5 Medicines in Practice
Sun Simiao, "King of Medicines" - wrote Essential Formulas (581-682)
- Often prescribed aconite and huzhang (arisaema)
- Cang'er (cocklebur) paste to treat limb pain
- Classified medicines based upon efficacy - all trial/error (clinical trials)
Focus was on treating the royal family - "Medicines were social substances" [p121]
Ch. 6 Alluring Stimulant
Wushi San (5 stone powder) - caused immense heat inside the body
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold-Fo...
- He Yan (220-280 Three Kingdoms Era) was a scholar who used it for his intellectual pursuit
- Created a philosophical movement called Xuanxue (Mysterious Learning)
- Together with Wang Bi, revisited Daoist classics - traced all phenomena back to cosmos
- Cured sickness, invigorated body, prolonged life, made body feel light as if flying
○ Led to psychosis - emperor Daowu in 409 began acting erratically. Killed a few of his officials on a whim. One of his sons eventually killed him to protect their mother
○ Hundreds of thousands died from taking it
○ Restricted to the social elites - a stimulant
- Chalcanthite (shidan, gree-blue), cinnabar (dansha, red), realgar (xionghuang, yellow), arsenolite (yushi, white), magnetite (cishi, black)
○ Du came from arsenolite
"Tellingly, there is no concept of side effects in classical Chinese medicine. A clear distinction between the two opposing effects - an intended effect as distinguished from unintended effects - does not hold in many traditional healing cultures, because the outcome of therapy is often interpreted as dynamic, systemic, and processual." [p146]
After the collapse of Han dynasty, Confucian ideology was weakened - revival of other philosophies
Ch. 7 Dying to Live
"If a medicine does not cause dizziness, it cannot cure illness. Initially it induces minor discomforts; later it is greatly efficacious." - The Record from the Stone Wall of the Great Clarity (8th century)
Mid-Tang period (794) - general Li Baozhen was 62 and facing death
- Took an elixir from a fangshi (master) named Sun Jichang - fell unconscious for many days
- A Daoist leader gave him a grain lacquer to purge, and he regained consciousness. Sun Jichang asked "You almost transcended. Why did you give up?" - took another 3000 pellets and died.
- In this era, many enthusiasts including 5 emperors ingested elixirs and died - popularity of taking elixirs reached its apex - waidan "outer alchemy"
○ Strong connection to Daoism, most alchemical writings in Daoist treaties
○ From beginning of Han to end of Tang, practice lasted for 1000 years
○ Xian (transcendence) - not immortality as in Christian tradition of a disembodied soul in a fixed state of Heaven, but multiple levels of bodily existence. More dynamic
Ge Hong (283-343) - most famous alchemist - pursuit of the Dao
- Wrote Inner Chapters of the Master Who Embraces the Unhewn (Baopuzi neipian)
- Ingesting elixirs is the best way to transcend death
- Focused on minerals - do not decay. Da yao vs. xiao yao
- Connected to morality - elixirs only work for transcendence if one has done enough good deeds - virtuous conduct
- Died by becoming transcendent - shijie (corpse deliverance) - body vanishes, like Obi Wan
"Outer Alchemy" merged to "inner alchemy - meditative techniques instead of pharmacology to reach transcendence
- Likely as a result of so many elixir deaths
- By Yuan-Ming drug use was extinct
Conclusion
" In ancient times, incompetent physicians killed people. Nowadays incompetent physicians don't kill people, but they don't save people either. They leave them between not dead and not alive. The patient's illness deepens over time, leading to death eventually… Those who prescribe medicines today tend to offer indiscriminate and static remedies. They cannot detect the illness clearly, nor can they treat it aggressively. This is why the illness cannot be cured." - Gu Yanwu, Record of Daily Learning (1695)
Compendium of Materia Medica - Bencao Gangmu (Ming dynasty 1578)
- Still included 51 du-possessing herbs
Toxicity or potency. 3 meanings, all involve "Thickness" - heaviness, intensity, unconstrained growth
a) Grass (cao) + unvirtuous person (ai) - herb that causes harm
b) Fu (invasive plant), Grass (cao) + knife (dao) - poison that is used for hunting/warfare
c) Plant (life) + chong (insect)
d) Person stepping on a venomous animal - threats of dangerous creatures in nature
Like daoism, nature of yin-yang, duality. "The central idea underlying the poison-medicine paradox in China is transformation: no fixed distinctions exist; all things are subject to perpetual change. To harness poisons, therefore, one must grasp the techniques of judiciously transforming them into therapeutic agents" [p38]
-
"Among the myriad things in the world, there is nothing that cannot be a medicine" - Sun Simiao (7th century physician, King of Medicines)
- Chinese version of the dose makes the poison
- Dual nature of du: poison and medicine, like pharmakon which also means remedy or poison
- Aconite (fuzi) - "lord of the hundred drugs"
○ 0.2mg aconitine orally is poisonous, 3-5mg causes death
○ Characterized as great heating power - for cold maladies. Highly ritualized preparation
§ Use water that flows eastward, soak for 5 days and 5 nights, etc.
○
○ Frederic Obringer - Drogues et poisons en Chine ancienne et medievale (1997)
○ "For all things under heaven, nothing is more vicious than the poison of aconite. Yet a good doctor packs and stores it, because it is useful" - Masters of Huainan (2nd centure BC)
- "Honest words are unpleasant to hear but good for action; potent drugs are bitter to ingest but good for healing." - Zhang Liang, advisor to Liu Bang (1st emperor of Han 256-195 BCE)
Two key drivers for therapeutic use of poisons:
- 5th century compilation of pharmacology under Han, began to see medical specialization and classification of du
- 7th century Sui and Tang dynasties began to publish written works prolifically
f
Hard to separate medicine from religion in ancient times, both in Europe and Asia
- Daoism emerged in China for popularity of nourishing the body
- But just as with Europe, medicine/religion were inseparable - combat illness and pursue immortality
Chinese version of Maslow - 3 levels of classification in Divine Farmers' Almanac (Shennong Bencao Jing). Also parallel to Shulgin's 2x2 of organizing/disorganizing drugs for ill/well people
- 365 drugs, du is the defining criteria
- 120 higher level: do not possess du. Helping healthy reach immortality. Organizing / well
○ Highest level is prevention. "The sage only treats people who are not yet sick, not people who are already sick" - The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic
○ Aspiration of immortality - nourishing life. When the radius is so small, there is no sickness
- 120 Middle level: some possess due, some do not. Helping prevent illness / replenish weak body organizing / unwell
- 125 lower level: mostly possess du. Treat those who are sick. Disorganizing / unwell
Collected Annotations on the Classic of Materia Medica (Bencao jing jizhu 500 AD)
- Written by Tao Hongjing, who left government service to become a Daoist hermit
- Lived in a mountain and dedicated self to meditation, wrote this book
- 730 drugs, Combined Shennong Bencao Jing with 35 from other physicians. Of the 575 known
○ 22% possess du. 71% of du-possessing are in the bottom group, only 7% are in top level
○ Most are plants
○ But animals are the highest percentage of bottom group
-
-
- Plants
○ 4 types of aconite are listed
○ Badou (croton) - the bean from ba
○ Gouwen (gelsemium) - hooking of the throat
○ Banxia (pinellia) - the half summer
○ Langdang zi (henbane) - seed of derangement
○ Langdu (stellera)
- Animal
○ Niuhuang (yellow ox) - bovine gallstones
○ Longgu (dragon's bone) - fossilized animal bones
○ Zhenniao mao (feathers of zhen bird) - effectively counter snake poison. Alcohol with feathers dipped in can kill a person instantly
Ch 2. Transforming Poisons
- Poly-pharmacology approach from Shen Nong:
○ 1 lord + 2 ministers + 5 assistants, or 1 lord + 3 ministers + 5 assistants
○ Drug combination rooted in bureaucratic organization - influence of political through on medical writing, even at such an early stage of China - indicative of need for mass organization. Greatest invention of man
- Also classified poly-pharmacology based on relationship of drugs
○ Xiangxu: mutual need (e.g. DMT + MAOi)
§ Gouwen (gelsemium) + banxia (pinellia)
○ Xiangshi: mutual assistance (agonism)
§ Langdu (stellera) + soybeans - like cooking
○ Xiangwei: mutual fear - two-way
○ Xiangwu: mutual hatred - one-way
§ Longgu (dragon's bone) + niuhuang (bovine gallstones)
○ Xiangfan: mutual opposition - drugs are enemies of each other
§ Cihuang (orpiment) + hufen (barbarian powder)
○ Xiangsha: mutual killing (constraint of drug's power / antagonism)
§ Poison to fight a poison, e.g. snakebite
- Paozhi technique: roast and broil. Pao (roasting) + Zhi (meat on fire)
○ Raw drugs (unprocessed)
○ Cooked drugs (processed)
- At Han era: Drug sellers were seen as mystical, a marginalized group with adept occult knowledge
○ Tao Hongjing in Collected Annotations lamented the industrialization of medicine that came with specialization of labor - much nuance was lost and only 200 drugs left in use
○ Those who harvest drugs different from those who process - lost the eye for choosing good plants. Those who process different from those who sell, lost the eye for niche applications. Physicians then prescribe indiscriminately. In the past, the same person did all - knew which plants to pick, when to harvest, how to prepare
Ch 3. Fighting Poison with Poison
- 5th & 6th century, demonic sources of illness figured prominently
○ expressed in Daoist movements
○ "On the Origins and Symptoms of All Illnesses" (Zhubing Yuanhou Lun) in 610
- Sui period, "gu" poisoning thought to call anxiety and paranoia
○ Political responses to punish gu practitioners, who were mainly women (just like West)
○ Guizhu = demonic infestation
§ Gui = spirit, not necessarily bad. Like seeing ghosts or spirit of animals
§ In the context of medicine, almost always negative. Believed to be contagious
§ Originated from Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) with contagion from dead bodies - introduced a new series of funeral rites for burial
○ Gu seen as demonic spirits, practitioners punished - mainly women, like with Christianity
§ Physician He correlated gu with the seductive power of women
§ Hexagram for gu from i-ching:
□
§ Combination of upper = firm or mountain and lower = supple or wind
□
□
§ Women = supple force deluding firm beings
§ Link between women and shamanism traced back to Han era
□ "witches" - believe that women are more susceptible to external influences, put in trance
○ Gu vermin is both a malady and a curse: snake gu can be cured by centipede gu, centipede gu cured by toad gu, toad gu cured by snake gu, etc…
§ Yi du gong du: medicinal du attacks du
- End of Han period, rise of Daoism - Tianshi Dao (Way of the Celestial Masters)
○ Used healing as an effective way to recruit followers
○ Illness passed down through ancestors, was punishment. Moral concept of illness
○ Demons were the cause of sickness - one was named fuzi (9' tall, 3 faces, 1 eye)
§ Named after aconite - association of drugs with altered states
- Chao Yuanfang, chief medical officer of Sui dynasty (581-618)
○ 3 departments: Medicine, therapeutic exericse, incantation
○ Focused on daoyin ("guiding and pulling")
Ch 4. Medicines in Circulation
Tang dynasty 618-755 beginning of government regulation
- Newly Revised Materia Medica (Xinxiu Bencao) 1st government sponsored materia medica
○ 850 drugs, 115 new
- Imperial medical office (taiyu shu), palace drug service (shangyao ju), pharmacy (yaozang ju)
○ palace drug service the testing and regulatory arm - protect the emperor from poisoning
○ Incorrect preparation = hanging
○ Medicinal sellers punished if colluding to distribute poison, but not if unintentionally sold to a bad actor
○ 4 substances called out for use in killing
§ Zhendu: zhen bird poison
§ Yege: gelsemium
§ Aconite: wutou and fuzi
○ Established cultivation regions for growing medicinal plants (yaoyuan)
§ And regulations for transport by donkey (100 jin limit, 68kg)
- Also drugs contributed as tribute to emperor - sign of subservience
○ Shexiang (musk) - glandular secretion from musk deer, counteracts atropine
○ Leiwan (omphalia)
○ Hengshan (dichroa root), shuqi (dichroa leaf)
○ Shujiao (pepper of sichuan)
○ Fuzi (aconite)
After fall of Tang, no state-sponsored medical projects until 10th century - Northern Song (960-1127)
- Difference: Northern song used printing, Tang literature was all hand-written
Ch. 5 Medicines in Practice
Sun Simiao, "King of Medicines" - wrote Essential Formulas (581-682)
- Often prescribed aconite and huzhang (arisaema)
- Cang'er (cocklebur) paste to treat limb pain
- Classified medicines based upon efficacy - all trial/error (clinical trials)
Focus was on treating the royal family - "Medicines were social substances" [p121]
Ch. 6 Alluring Stimulant
Wushi San (5 stone powder) - caused immense heat inside the body
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold-Fo...
- He Yan (220-280 Three Kingdoms Era) was a scholar who used it for his intellectual pursuit
- Created a philosophical movement called Xuanxue (Mysterious Learning)
- Together with Wang Bi, revisited Daoist classics - traced all phenomena back to cosmos
- Cured sickness, invigorated body, prolonged life, made body feel light as if flying
○ Led to psychosis - emperor Daowu in 409 began acting erratically. Killed a few of his officials on a whim. One of his sons eventually killed him to protect their mother
○ Hundreds of thousands died from taking it
○ Restricted to the social elites - a stimulant
- Chalcanthite (shidan, gree-blue), cinnabar (dansha, red), realgar (xionghuang, yellow), arsenolite (yushi, white), magnetite (cishi, black)
○ Du came from arsenolite
"Tellingly, there is no concept of side effects in classical Chinese medicine. A clear distinction between the two opposing effects - an intended effect as distinguished from unintended effects - does not hold in many traditional healing cultures, because the outcome of therapy is often interpreted as dynamic, systemic, and processual." [p146]
After the collapse of Han dynasty, Confucian ideology was weakened - revival of other philosophies
Ch. 7 Dying to Live
"If a medicine does not cause dizziness, it cannot cure illness. Initially it induces minor discomforts; later it is greatly efficacious." - The Record from the Stone Wall of the Great Clarity (8th century)
Mid-Tang period (794) - general Li Baozhen was 62 and facing death
- Took an elixir from a fangshi (master) named Sun Jichang - fell unconscious for many days
- A Daoist leader gave him a grain lacquer to purge, and he regained consciousness. Sun Jichang asked "You almost transcended. Why did you give up?" - took another 3000 pellets and died.
- In this era, many enthusiasts including 5 emperors ingested elixirs and died - popularity of taking elixirs reached its apex - waidan "outer alchemy"
○ Strong connection to Daoism, most alchemical writings in Daoist treaties
○ From beginning of Han to end of Tang, practice lasted for 1000 years
○ Xian (transcendence) - not immortality as in Christian tradition of a disembodied soul in a fixed state of Heaven, but multiple levels of bodily existence. More dynamic
Ge Hong (283-343) - most famous alchemist - pursuit of the Dao
- Wrote Inner Chapters of the Master Who Embraces the Unhewn (Baopuzi neipian)
- Ingesting elixirs is the best way to transcend death
- Focused on minerals - do not decay. Da yao vs. xiao yao
- Connected to morality - elixirs only work for transcendence if one has done enough good deeds - virtuous conduct
- Died by becoming transcendent - shijie (corpse deliverance) - body vanishes, like Obi Wan
"Outer Alchemy" merged to "inner alchemy - meditative techniques instead of pharmacology to reach transcendence
- Likely as a result of so many elixir deaths
- By Yuan-Ming drug use was extinct
Conclusion
" In ancient times, incompetent physicians killed people. Nowadays incompetent physicians don't kill people, but they don't save people either. They leave them between not dead and not alive. The patient's illness deepens over time, leading to death eventually… Those who prescribe medicines today tend to offer indiscriminate and static remedies. They cannot detect the illness clearly, nor can they treat it aggressively. This is why the illness cannot be cured." - Gu Yanwu, Record of Daily Learning (1695)
Compendium of Materia Medica - Bencao Gangmu (Ming dynasty 1578)
- Still included 51 du-possessing herbs
May 13, 2023
Good history lesson
Great for history, no practical application. included. Would love to learn how to use the plants described in this book to add to my growing apothecary
Great for history, no practical application. included. Would love to learn how to use the plants described in this book to add to my growing apothecary
November 2, 2025
it was very insightful and interesting. I gave three stars because I was low-key expecting recipes but this was fun too.
December 9, 2025
thank you Yan Liu for helping me with my project, this was so interesting and fabulous
May 29, 2025
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews