السيمياء الصينية .. الاسكندريه والسيمياء

Chinese Alchemy.. Alexandria and Alchemy

Chinese Alchemy

At first, these efforts received support from the upper classes. The first emperor in the third century AD was apparently haunted by the obsession with immortality, and was constantly under the control of a Taoist magician. Money and honors were showered on the favorite courtier until the emperor was disillusioned and an order was issued for the most severe punishment. Eventually, a magician from the Shantung coast convinced the emperor to take an elixir made of mercury transformed into gold, and of course the emperor died during a trip to the Shantung coast. At least two other emperors died as a result of poisoning by the elixir or from the weakness and debility it caused them.

This leads to the same question we asked about Alexandrian alchemy: why did the alchemists persist despite the clear evidence of the futility of their method by the dead emperors? The answer, according to the scholar Joseph Needham (15), can be found again in their apparent partial success. The bodies of those who died from poisoning with mercury and other heavy metals tended to decompose slowly, perhaps because the bacteria in the body had also been poisoned. So those who died after taking the elixir seemed to have cheated death—if only a little—and so these deaths fueled further research rather than dispelling the theory.

Perhaps all these deadly experiments were not for nothing. Chinese alchemists found certain mercury compounds to be wonderful at getting rid of fleas and lice. Soap was still a luxury at the time. Some scholars attribute the richness of Chinese cuisine to the Taoist habit of experimenting with all manner of organic and inorganic foods. The discovery of anesthetics and a vast list of other medicines came from these experiments. As Edwin Reese Chauer and John Fairbank put it:

The bulk of Chinese research on this subject seems to have stemmed from the curious activities of the experimental semioticians and the Taoist magicians, and perhaps one of the reasons why Chinese thinkers later turned their backs so decisively on scientific experimentation was its association in their minds with Taoism (16).

It is tempting to say that it left a bad taste in their mouths.

An imperial edict was issued around 150 BC ordering the public execution of those who counterfeited gold. At this time the motive was not fear of accumulating wealth for disobedience, but simply the death of many prominent people. Nevertheless, the practice of alchemy continued, and by 140 AD the atmosphere had become so tolerant that a Chinese book on alchemy was published.

Wei Po-Yang

Only a few direct sources are known about the life of this first semiotic author. He may have been Wei Po-Yang (of a shamanic family skilled in magic), but Wei Po-Yang says of himself in his first work, Chan Tung Chi (The Three Lineage), that he had distanced himself from government service.

Although the relationship of the three is very obscure, the most revealing description is that of the work of amalgamating mercury and lead. In the following inscription, the term yellow plant refers to the layer of yellow lead oxide that forms on the surface of molten lead.

From the beginning of yin and yang, the lead ore has contained the yellow shore... "the pearls that come" mercury... then the tendency to flee... and finally when (they) obtain the golden flower, [they] react with it, melting into a white paste or solidifying into a mass, it is "the golden flower that changes first because it melts in a few moments into the viscous liquid." The two substances now merge together and acquire an uncoordinated appearance like coral or horse teeth.

From this moment onwards the spirit of Yang comes to join it, and the nature of things now works in harmony. After a short period of time, the two substances are united in one place (17).

Bo-Yang says that eating gold promotes longevity, and he discusses the making of gold drink into gold-colored powders or liquids. Although he was well aware of the nature of real gold, he and other alchemists thought that gold drink was a different kind of gold.

Qu Hong

Qu Hong, another important writer on alchemy and the maker of gold drink, lived between the third and fourth centuries AD, and we know a little more about his life. Qu Hong began his career as an officer in the army, fighting to put down some rebellions. But he retired from the military and, with the support of his father, who rose to become the governor of Shaoping, was able to study alchemy and medicine among the brilliant students. He traveled and studied plants and minerals, especially in the south. He later used his bureaucratic connections to become governor of an area near the cinnabar deposits, which he needed for his research. On the way to his position through some mountains, he decided to stop for a while, but he ended up staying in the mountains, writing his book and conducting his semiotic research until his death. During the course of these events, Qu Hong married, and his wife, Bao Qu, was also a semiotician, and this was apparently no exception. A number of women appear in drawings and written records of semiotics, and Qu Hong describes a number of expert women in his works (18).

It is clear from Qu Hong's writings that he was also well acquainted with the nature of real gold. When he describes a colleague putting a handful of something into boiling lead and tin to make silver, Qu Hong adds:

Of course these are fake things. For example, if iron is rubbed with layered malachite (copper carbonate), its color turns red like copper. Silver can be made yellow like gold by egg white. However, both have undergone external, not internal, changes (19). However, in his prominent book, the Bao Fu Tzu (The Book of Preserving the Sacred Philosopher Apparent), Kuo Hong gives recipes for making gold from mercury, lead, and other ingredients, most of which are just yellow deposits containing mercury. Kuo Hong attributes a number of beneficial properties to these mixtures, and in addition to the recipes, he gives some physiological effects, including those related to vision and symptoms of mercury poisoning.