Using Poison as Medicine: Medicine, Culture, and Politics in Ancient China

About This Novel

This book studies how doctors, religious figures, court officials and lay scholar-bureaucrats used poisonous drugs to treat stubborn diseases and strengthen the body during the formative period of Chinese medicine from the 3rd to 9th centuries. By focusing on how the concept of "poison" in Chinese led healers to adopt various methods to transform dangerous poisons into panaceas, the author clearly reveals the important position of poisons in traditional Chinese medicine and medieval society. This book tells the story of medical disputes and political events involving poisons from the late Han Dynasty to the early Tang Dynasty, demonstrating that "poison" was crucial to how people perceived their bodies and body politics at that time. The author also examines the vast array of toxic minerals, plants, and animal products in classical Chinese medicine, including the highly toxic "King of Medicines" Aconite and the once-popular Five Stone Powder, showing how powerful medicines work on the body and how this effect shaped knowledge about medicines and the diseases they treated. The book also explores ancient Chinese understandings of health and how the body interacted with toxic drugs, reminding us to pay attention to the materiality of drug flows, whose true meaning and utility are not reducible to a fixed core, but vary depending on specific technological interventions, sociopolitical conditions, and individual bodily experiences.

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