Tuizhi (Han Yu) took sulphur and was badly ill.
Duzi (Du Mu) found the way of alchemy, and then stopped eating fish or mutton all day.
Cui Jun (Cui Li) boasted of the effect of his medicine, and did not wear clothes all day.
He would get ill or die, both happening no later than his middle age.
All of these famous men died young because of taking vermilion pills or stones.
It was pitty of course, but, in fact, it happened far more than them.
It was started from the First Emperor of Qin, who took vermilion pills for immortality,
and then the vogue of taking vermilion pills caught on in Wei, Jin, Tang, Ming dynasties and so on.
A dozen emperors even died of taking excessive vermilion pills,
and numberous people were poisoned.
Because alchemy was expensive, people who could not afford it,
often took stone (mineral substance) directly.
What is vermilion pills?
It was called Golden Elixir, namely gold liquid (extracted from gold).
the abbreviation of Huandan (Cyclic change happens when the cinnabar was calcined.)
Vemilion pills need fire calcining,
so the technology is also called alchemy.
“Dan” is cinnabar, namely vermilion with red colour.
It was a kind of Chinese medicine by itself.
It contains the main drug of alchemy.
The calcined medicine is also called “Dan”.
“Dan” here has become a kind of preparations.
There is still sublimed preparation in our Chinese medicine until now.
Cinnabar was quite popular with ancient people by its sightly color.
When alchemy developed,
The main composition of cinnabar is mercuric sulfide.
It could become argenteous liquid mercury after calcining.
Namely, Gong in Chinese.
Mercury and sulphur are calcined together,
We can get the red cinnabar again.
The chemical change can happen in circles.
So it can be named as “Jiu Zhuan Huan Dan” in Chinese.
Therefore, people found the fantastic chemical change when they were calcining,
And the ancient people were astonished by it,
so it arose much thought.
As they believed, all the grass and wood would become ash after they were burnt.
But cinnabar could become mercury by calcining, and then become cinnabar back again.
Grass and wood are far from it.
What’s meaning?
He thought grass and wood became ash after burning.
If the grass and wood can treat diseases,
What I burnt can not become ash,
but can happen in circles.
That should far surpass the effect of grass and wood.
Therefore, they believed that vermilion pills can keep human immortal.
So Ge Hong once said,
The longer Dan was calcined, the more fantastic changes we can find.
Gold will not decrease no matter how long it is calcined in fire.
And when buried in soil, it will not decay even for a very long time.
People will get stronger after taking the two kinds of medicine, so it can keep human immortal.
Actually, people keep themselves stronger by means of other things outside their body.
Ge Hong, as we all know, is a Taoism priest.
As well as a medical scientist and pharmacologist.
When he said so,
Who will not believe it?
So it can be found that in the alchemy, Taoism culture
had a significant impact.
With the profound affect of alchemy in Qin and Han dynasties,
Shennong’s Herbal lists some certain crude drug of alchemy as top grade.
Such as Jade Spring, cinnabar, mercury and azurite ore.
But this is not doctors’ summary of experience.
Alchemy is a subtle experiment,
and promoted the development of chemical medicine in later ages.
However the aim of taking vermilion pills for immortality is fatuous.
Therefore, some called it deformed discipline.
Taking vermilion pills caused a lot of social problems.
Cinnabar intoxication has become front project of medical therapy.
Researchs of modern scholarship shows
that gunpowder, as one of the four great inventions in ancient China
has close relationship with alchemy and fire.
Although, from Qin and Han dynasties to Sui and Tang dynasties,
the fashion of taking vermilion pills was popular among the whole society,
most doctors are sober.
Although Shennong’s Herbal was influenced by alchemy,
and contains a lot of records on goldstone as material of alchemy,
It could not indicate that doctors at that time agreed with the records of some certain medicine in it.
According to the explanation of Collective Commentaries on the Classic of Materia Medica of Liang Hongjing in Liang dynasty,
Medicine recorded in Shennong’s Herbal and Miscellaneous Records of Famous Physicians are actually “Immortal Classics”.
The so called “Immortal Classics” is the combination of Taoism Classics
and doctor’s medication.
So it is not a pure book of medicine.
The great pharmacologist in Ming dynasty, Li Shizhen, held distinctive attitude toward it.
He also said the cinnabar became gold, which people took would become immortal.
Chen Cangqi also said too much taking of cinnabar would keep the taker immortal, and so forth.
Cinnabar in Han dynasty could be used in clinic surgery.
If you are interest, please take a look at it.
I will not say more about it.
It is worth mentioning Ge Hong in East Jin dynasty.
He had the most significant impact in alchemy.
He believed that only by taking his golden elixir,
can we become immortal.
And he clearly proposed that those who could not get golden elixir, but take grass and wood as medicine were little minds.
They could only prolong life-span, but could not be immortal.
He did believe alchemy can help people be immortal,
and grass could only prolong your life-span.
The two points are totally not on the same level.
So the impact was significant.