2015 · VOLUME 69 · ISSUE 4 ASIATISCHE STUDIEN ÉTUDES ASIATIQUES ZEITSCHRIFT DER SCHWEIZERISCHEN ASIENGESELLSCHAFT REVUE DE LA SOCIÉTÉ SUISSE-ASIE EDITOR OF THIS ISSUE Dagmar Wujastyk, Wien EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Rafael Suter, Zürich Brought to you by | University of Alberta Library Authenticated Download Date | 12/2/15 9:58 PM ISSN 0004-4717 · e-ISSN 2235-5871 All information regarding notes for contributors, subscriptions, Open Access, back volumes and orders is available online at http://www.degruyter.com/asia. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Rafael Suter, Asien-Orient-Institut, Universität Zürich, Zürichbergstrasse 4, CH-8032 Zürich, Schweiz, Email: sag.editor@aoi.uzh.ch EDITOR OF THIS ISSUE Dagmar Wujastyk, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, University of Vienna, Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Wien, Austria, Email: dagmar.wujastyk@univie.ac.at JOURNAL MANAGER Bettina Chang, De Gruyter, Genthiner Straße 13, 10785 Berlin, Germany, Tel.: +49 (0)30 260 05-355, Fax: +49 (0)30 260 05-250, Email: bettina.chang@degruyter.com RESPONSIBLE FOR ADVERTISEMENTS Heiko Schulze, De Gruyter, Genthiner Straße 13, 10785 Berlin, Germany, Tel.: +49 (0)30 260 05-358, Fax: +49 (0) 30 260 05-264, Email: anzeigen@degruyter.com © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Boston/Berlin TYPESETTING Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd., Pondicherry, India PRINTING Franz X. Stückle Druck und Verlag e. K., Ettenheim Printed in Germany Brought to you by | University of Alberta Library Authenticated Download Date | 12/2/15 9:58 PM ASIA 2015 | Volume 69 | Issue 4 Contents Editorial Dagmar Wujastyk Histories of Mercury in Medicine across Asia and Beyond 819 Aufsätze – Articles – Articles Natalia Bachour Healing with Mercury: The Uses of Mercury in Arabic Medical Literature 831 Barbara Gerke Biographies and Knowledge Transmission of Mercury Processing in Twentieth Century Tibet 867 Claudia Preckel Cinnabar, Calomel and the Art of kushtasāzī: Mercurial Preparations in Unani Medicine 901 Brigitte Sébastia Preserving Identity or Promoting Safety? The Issue of Mercury in Siddha Medicine: A Brake on the Crossing of Frontiers 933 Johannes Thomann Early Persian Medical Works on Antisyphilitic Mercury Medicines Daniel Trambaiolo Antisyphilitic Mercury Drugs in Early Modern China and Japan 971 997 Timothy Walker Medicinal Mercury in Early Modern Portuguese Records: Recipes and Methods from Eighteenth-Century Medical Guidebooks 1017 Dagmar Wujastyk Mercury as an Antisyphilitic in Ayurvedic Medicine 1043 Brought to you by | University of Alberta Library Authenticated Download Date | 12/2/15 9:58 PM 2015 | Volume 69 | Issue 4 ASIA Rezensionen – Comptes rendus – Reviews David Chiavacci Babb, James (ed.): The SAGE Handbook of Modern Japanese Studies 1069 Philipp Hetmanczyk Gentz, Joachim (2013): Understanding Chinese Religions (Understanding Faith) 1075 Regula Forster Görke, Andreas/Pink, Johanna (Hgg.): Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History: Exploring the Boundaries of a Genre 1081 Till Mostowlansky Gorshenina, Svetlana: L’invention de l’Asie centrale. Histoire du concept de la Tartarie à l’Eurasie 1087 Justyna Jaguscik Hermann, Marc: Leib und (A-)Moral. Ideologie- und Moralkritik im Werk von Zhang Ailing 1091 Nathalie Marseglia Jahn, Gisela (2014): Japanische Keramik – Aufbruch im 20. Jahrhundert: Die Bildung von Tradition, Moderne und Individualität 1900–1945 1097 Marion Rastelli S. Sambandhaśivācārya/B. Dagens/M.-L. Barazer-Billoret/T. Ganesan, with the Collaboration of Creisméas J.-M. Sūkṣmāgama. Volume II. Chapters 14 to 53. Critical Edition 1109 Phung Tran Zhang Yinde: Mo Yan, le lieu de la fiction 1111 Brought to you by | University of Alberta Library Authenticated Download Date | 12/2/15 9:58 PM 

Book proposal: Medical Mercury: A Global Commodity in Transition Editor: Dr. Dagmar Wujastyk, University research Priority Programme Asia and Europe, University of Zurich, dagmar.wujastyk@uzh.ch Mercury is today recognized as a harmful environmental pollutant and one of the world's most dangerous elemental toxins. And yet, it was long considered a near-miraculous substance capable of eradicating the most severe diseases. The medical use of quicksilver (liquid metallic mercury) is already documented in ancient Greek, Indian, Persian, Arabic and Chinese medical and alchemical treatises, and particularly early instances of procedures for preparing mercury compounds are found in Chinese medicine. In Europe, quicksilver and mercury compounds were increasingly used in medicine from the sixteenth century CE, especially after Paracelsus advocated their use. At the same time, trade in mercury became a global phenomenon with European colonial expansion, particularly for use in gold and silver mining as well as for medical purposes. For the next four centuries, mercury compounds such as corrosive sublimate (HgCl2), calomel (Hg2Cl2) and mercury sulfide compounds (HgS) were among the most important and heavily used drugs in the European and Asian pharmacopoeias, connecting Asian and European countries with each other in a network of trade and medical knowledge transfer. Mercury was used in a wide variety of medical applications: to treat inflammation in the nose and throat, corneal stains, ulcers and warts; as a laxative; to stimulate the biliary function; against diarrhea and vomiting; against dropsy; against spleen, liver, and lung diseases; and most notably, against syphilis. In more recent times (up to the 1990s), it was used as a spermicide in chemical contraceptives and in antiseptic salves, and it is still used in dental amalgams, in vaccines (as the organomercury compound thimerosal), cosmetics, eye drops and saline solutions. Mercury continues to be used in Chinese and Tibetan medicines, as well as in the South Asian medical traditions of Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha. However, its medical use has become a contentious issue in view of environmental and human health concerns. The growing importance of global standards of safety in medicine, as well as the ongoing globalization of Asian medicines, through which drugs from traditional Asian pharmacopoeias have become available outside the country of their origin, has led to increased discussion of both the safety and the efficacy of Asian medicines containing mercury. Both European and Asian historical sources dating to the premodern period show that doctors and patients alike were aware of the dangerous effects of mercury. However, symptoms of mercury poisoning such as salivation, tooth decay and ulcers in the mouth were mostly interpreted as either proof of the efficacy of the treatment, or as unfortunate side effects that could be balanced with countermeasures. Modern scientific research on the effects of mercury on human health, however, is unequivocal in stating the toxicity of mercury and its harmfulness to humans. Accordingly, the 2013 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Mercury Assessment (http://www.unep.org/PDF/PressReleases/Mercury_TimeToAct_hires.pdf) advises a ban and/or phase-out of mercury products, including additions of mercury compounds to the formulation of human pharmaceutical drug products. Vaccines that use mercury as a preservative and products used in religious or traditional rites have been excluded from the treaty. The enactment of the UNEP resolution by regulatory bodies in Asian countries could have serious implications for the practice of and trade in traditional Asian medicines. Responses from representative bodies or spokespersons of Asian medical systems are varied, and range from acknowledging the use of mercury in medicine as problematic, to arguing for more substantial scientific testing of the contested medicines instead of their wholesale rejection, to impassioned calls to defend mercurial medicines as integral and time-tested elements of their medical tradition. Supporters of Asian medicines argue that if their traditional procedures for purifying and detoxifying mercury are followed carefully, mercury medicines are not only completely safe for human use, but constitute the most powerful cures. The tension between a long-established use of mercury in medicine and modern research on the deleterious effects of mercury on human health makes an inquiry into the beginnings of the use of mercury in medicine, when different medical systems developed both reasons for and methods of preparing and applying mercurial medicines, particularly topical. In the proposed interdisciplinary multi-author volume, scholars from diverse areas of research (European history, Indology, Sinology, Japanology, Tibetology, Oriental studies, anthropology) will examine the uses of mercury in a number of medical and alchemical traditions from the early modern period to the present. Drawing upon the primary textual sources of each respective tradition (European, Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Arab and Persian) as well as on colonial and trade company records, the authors will explore the epistemologies of the use of mercury in medicine, i.e., why, when and how mercury was used in the different medical traditions. A comparison of processing methods, recipes and applications will serve to identify possible links between the various medical and alchemical systems and to create a detailed and comprehensive picture of connections both in trade as also in medical theory and techniques. Contributions will further examine the role of the shifting colonial networks of trade and the inner workings of European markets in the development and global transmission of mercury products, locating the different medical traditions and their cultural, political and economic contexts within a global history of iatrochemistry. The volume will map the networks of exchange between the different cultures and their medical systems, tracing the routes of trade and paths of cultural transfer that lead to the global dissemination of iatrochemical knowledge and made mercury one of the world's most important medical substances. Intervention This collection of essays will be instrumental in providing first insight into the many connections between the various Asian cultures and their medical traditions, and the role European colonial enterprises played in adding to these connections, particularly through dominating, but also opening up trade routes and making new medicinal substances globally available. The history of the use of mercury in Arab and Persian medicine has not been researched at any length, much of the relevant materials only being available in manuscript form. The same is true for the history of the use of mercury in the Indian, Tibetan and Japanese medical traditions, although a forthcoming special volume of the journal Asian medicine- Tradition and Modernity (Brill) will fill some of the gaps in our knowledge. There are clearly strong historical connections between Persian, Indian, Tibetan and Chinese medicine, the Portuguese, Dutch and English colonialists and trade companies playing a key role in both the dissemination and the withholding of information and materials. These connections will be examined in more detail in the essays. The gradual transformation of alchemy (particularly the Asian alchemical traditions) into its branches of chemistry and iatrochemistry in the early modern period is another subject that we know little about and that this volume addresses. Audience This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to academics and students of medical history and medical anthropology, history of science, European and colonial history, indology, sinology, japanology, tibetology, oriental studies, and pharmacology. Written in a scholarly-accessible style, it is aimed at both an undergraduate and a postgraduate student audience, and will provide cuttingedge course material for courses in a number of academic disciplines, such as medical history, medical anthropology, history of science and Asian and Oriental studies. Table of Contents Medical Mercury: A Global Commodity in Transition Introduction (ca 3000 words) Mercury in medicine: Fluid economies of knowledge and trade (Dagmar Wujastyk, Zurich University) Chapters (ca 8000-9000 words each) 1) The Networks of Inner-European Trade in Mercury for Medicine in the Early Modern Period (Andrew Cunningham, Cambridge University, UK) 2) Medicinal Mercury in the Early Modern Portuguese Records: Eighteenth-Century Medical Guides and Recipes (Timothy Walker, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, U.S.A.) 3) The Use of Mercury in Arabic Medicine (Natalia Bachour, Zurich University, Switzerland) 4) Persian Medical Works on Mercury and its Use in Antisyphilitic Medicines (Johannes Thomann, Zurich University, Switzerland) 5) Cinnabar, Calomel and the Art of kushtasāzī: Mercurial Preparations in Unani Medicine (Claudia Preckel, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Germany) 6) Preserving Identity or Promoting Safety? The Issue of Mercury in Siddha Medicine: A Brake on the Crossing of Frontiers (Brigitte Sebastia, French Institute of Pondicherrry, India) 7) Mercury as an Antisyphilitic in the Ayurvedic Medical Tradition (Dagmar Wujastyk, Zurich University, Switzerland) 8) Antisyphilitic Mercury Drugs as Objects of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan (Daniel Trambaiolo, Princeton University, U.S.A.) 9) Between Secrecy and Preservation: Knowledge Transmission of Mercury Processing Methods in post 1959 Tibet and in Indian Exile (Barbara Gerke, Humboldt University, Germany)