Healing with Poisons

At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically deployed as healing agents to cure everything from chills to pains to epidemics. Healing with Poisons explores the ways physicians, religious devotees, c...

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מחבר ראשי: Liu, Yan
פורמט: Online
שפה:אנגלית
יצא לאור: University of Washington Press 2023
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גישה מקוונת:OCN: 1226075976
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author Liu, Yan
author_browse Liu, Yan
author_facet Liu, Yan
author_sort Liu, Yan
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically deployed as healing agents to cure everything from chills to pains to epidemics. Healing with Poisons explores the ways physicians, religious devotees, court officials, and laypeople used powerful substances to both treat intractable illnesses and enhance life. It illustrates how the Chinese concept of du—a word carrying a core meaning of “potency”—led practitioners to devise a variety of techniques to transform dangerous poisons into efficacious medicines. Recounting scandals and controversies involving poisons from the Era of Division to the early Tang period, Yan Liu considers how the concept of du was central to the ways people of medieval China perceived both their bodies and the body politic. Liu also examines a wide range of du-possessing minerals, plants, and animal products in classical Chinese pharmacy, including the highly poisonous herb aconite and the popular arsenic drug Five-Stone Powder. By recovering alternative modes of understanding wellness and the body’s interaction with potent medicines, this study cautions against arbitrary classifications and exemplifies the importance of paying attention to the technical, political, and cultural conditions in which substances become truly meaningful. Healing with Poisons is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of the University at Buffalo Libraries. DOI 10.6069/9780295749013
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1127602025-03-20T09:17:35Z Healing with Poisons Liu, Yan Asian Studies, China, Medical History, history of medicine, Poison, Medicine, Drug, Alchemy, Technology, Tang, Empire, Daoism At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically deployed as healing agents to cure everything from chills to pains to epidemics. Healing with Poisons explores the ways physicians, religious devotees, court officials, and laypeople used powerful substances to both treat intractable illnesses and enhance life. It illustrates how the Chinese concept of du—a word carrying a core meaning of “potency”—led practitioners to devise a variety of techniques to transform dangerous poisons into efficacious medicines. Recounting scandals and controversies involving poisons from the Era of Division to the early Tang period, Yan Liu considers how the concept of du was central to the ways people of medieval China perceived both their bodies and the body politic. Liu also examines a wide range of du-possessing minerals, plants, and animal products in classical Chinese pharmacy, including the highly poisonous herb aconite and the popular arsenic drug Five-Stone Powder. By recovering alternative modes of understanding wellness and the body’s interaction with potent medicines, this study cautions against arbitrary classifications and exemplifies the importance of paying attention to the technical, political, and cultural conditions in which substances become truly meaningful. Healing with Poisons is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of the University at Buffalo Libraries. DOI 10.6069/9780295749013 2023-08-17T04:02:34Z 2023-08-17T04:02:34Z 2023-08-16T07:52:49Z 2021 book OCN: 1226075976 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/75533 9780295748993 9780295749006 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/112760 eng open access image/png image/png image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/75533/2/9780295749013.epub https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/75533/2/9780295749013.epub https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/75533/1/9780295749013.pdf University of Washington Press 10.6069/9780295749013 10.6069/9780295749013 05b43d6c-b025-4c47-9778-32ac09131cc4 University at Buffalo a3f7ee10-c3c5-4825-aaaa-966c0a39b277 9780295748993 9780295749006 Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) 278 Seattle TOME open access
spellingShingle Asian Studies, China, Medical History, history of medicine, Poison, Medicine, Drug, Alchemy, Technology, Tang, Empire, Daoism
Liu, Yan
Healing with Poisons
title Healing with Poisons
title_full Healing with Poisons
title_fullStr Healing with Poisons
title_full_unstemmed Healing with Poisons
title_short Healing with Poisons
title_sort healing with poisons
topic Asian Studies, China, Medical History, history of medicine, Poison, Medicine, Drug, Alchemy, Technology, Tang, Empire, Daoism
topic_facet Asian Studies, China, Medical History, history of medicine, Poison, Medicine, Drug, Alchemy, Technology, Tang, Empire, Daoism
url OCN: 1226075976
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