Presentation by Dagmar Wujastyk: Old substances, new understandings: Iron tonics and the roots of ayurvedic iatrochemistry

01.03.2019

Presentation by Dagmar Wujastyk: Old substances, new understandings: Iron tonics and the roots of ayurvedic iatrochemistry

Between the ninth and elevnth centuries CE, the Sanskrit medical texts began to record profound changes in the methods used for drug manufacture. New substances, such as heavy metals and mineral poisons were added to the ayurvedic pharmacopoiea or were given new prominence. More significantly, however, new ways of processing raw materials adopted from the emerging alchemical discipline were introduced. These procedures were thought to make substances both fit for medical use and at the same time to heighten the substances’ potency. Most of the new, but also many of the traditional substances were now put through a series of complicated, multi-stage processes before they were used as components of compound medicines. The new formulations were considered both particularly strong and widely applicable.

In my presentation I will trace the evolution of these changes and the concomitant developments in the understanding of the characteristics of drug materials and I will discuss what this shift in pharmaceutical operations may have meant for the practice of medicine. 

The University of Alberta HCGSA Conference:

“Materials and Exchange”
Feb 28 - Mar 2, 2019

Conference description: Whether it be economic, cultural, or intellectual, exchange frequently involves the physical
transfer of materials from one place to another. As a result, materials have the potential to
bridge often vast physical and psychic distances. Our conference is interested in the use of
materials and exchange of materials as a source of scholarly inquiry about the past, especially
when such sources help direct a critical eye toward contemporary processes of exchange. What
can material objects and their exchange tell us about people’s lives and relationships to others?
How have materials affected, and been affected by, the process of commercial, linguistic, and
cultural exchange?

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