"poison" And Medieval Society

The paper attempts to discuss the relationship between poison and its impacts on social life in middle ages. Guided by Mr. Chen YinKe’s ideas "seeing history from the perspectives of people at that time", this paper tries to seek facts from trivial things on the basis of historical materials. In middle aged, four things dominate people’s life: clothes, food, shelter and transportation, among which food and transportation are closely related to poison. When ancient people eat and drink, travel around, pay a visit to friends and relatives as well as being removed from his post to some remote areas, poison may come into their lives, let alone drinking and drug which are frequently mentioned in historical materials. This paper not only has a panoramic view on the background, but also pays great attention to microcosmic evidences so as to keep it strict and credible. Except for the introduction part, this paper is composed of four chapters.The second chapter discusses the drugs in middle ages. Poison, as a type of drugs, belongs to the area of medicine. Therefore, there is a thorough analysis about the concept of poisons in Chinese medicines at the first section of the opening part. Defined by Chinese medicine, all drugs are collectively known as poison for all of them are poisonous in nature. It is the toxicity that is used to heal diseases. Poison is known as "deep" and "Pian". Chinese medicine thinks that people fall ill for the imbalance between "Yin" and "Yang" which is cause by some external evil forces. The imbalance is not ordinary one and cannot be adjusted by common things, but the proper use of poison can help human beings to reach the balance between "Yin" and "Yang" for its extraordinary "deepness" and "Pian". At the same time, Chinese medicine minimizes the toxicity of poisons by making some adjustment on them. As to different poisons, there are different ways to make them so as to maximize the medical effects and minimize the toxicity, ensuring the safety of users.The second section gives an introduction to the poisons that kill people. The author thinks that there are two basic standard to define medicine in ancient times:first, it kills people in accordance to the historical record; second, there are some historical examples recording how it kills people. After a thorough survey, acknowledged poison are "Gouwen (Yege)","Wutou (Shewang, Fuzi)","Jiudu","Badou","Jiaojing","Lanyao", "Danghucao" and so on. With credible evidence, these poisons are use in middle ages and their culture connotations-"symbolic feature"—are explored.But as historical records about different poisons are not identical in quality and quantity, the research on their "symbolic feature" are far from the same. In the after-discussion part, the fact that sometimes several poisons are mixed to be effective as a single poison is not enough is revealed. Besides, by comparing the historical statistics, it is found that during the ending period of Tang Dynasty when the social turmoil and unstable factors were prevail, killing people with poisons was very common. Therefore, when the emperor united the nation he claimed that the use of "mixed poisons" was deadly sins.The third chapter explains the relationship between poisons and its impacts on people’s social life. It firstly introduces major poisonous animals in middle ages such as snakes, bees, scorpions, centipete, shegong, chiggers and so on. People’s knowledge about these animals are explored with the assistance of historical record. In addition, the impacts of poisonous animals on touring people are explained from the social perspective. In middle ages, there are some poisonous meat, fish and vegetables which are banned as food.The fourth part reveals issues on "Gudu". It is based on previous studies but is a discussion of new problems from a different perspective. The first section shows that people were going back and forth about the fact whether "Gudu" was real or not. At the primary stage when "Gudu" firstly appeared, little attention was paid on it under the impacts of original way of logical thinking. But with the rapid social development and improvement of people’s cognitive ability, they began to differentiate it and tried to explain this phenomenon as an illusionary thing named "Qi" or an objective thing named "worms". How to solve this problem, the author thinks that "Gudu" is an imaginary thing and people of different social classed and cognitive level may define it differently. Besides, for its illusive nature, people’s thoughts on the way of accumulating "gu" and its types are becoming more undefined and inexact. With the passage of time, the cultural connotation of "accumulating Gu" and "Gudu" are enriched.The second section mainly depicts reasons for mankind’s fear to "Gudu" form two perspectives. Firstly, from the perspective of government officials:when civilians begin to fear the strange, mysterious and dangerous "Gudu", government official interfere into this event by promulgating a series of laws and regulations--people who use "Gudu" to kill others will be seriously punished. Secondly, the painful symptoms and high death rate of infected people is the fundamental cause of fear.The third section reveals the authority of doctors over "Gudu". Medicine books at middle age give the most comprehensive introduction to "Gudu", indicating the close relationship between doctors and "Gudu". At the same time, though wizards are identified as doctors, they are not qualified to compete with real doctors on authority over "Gudu". It may be cause by the increasing cognitive ability of the social crowd. As a result, the belief of "trusting a doctor rather than a wizard" becomes a general social trend. Doctors, as a group of people who are specialized in medical care, are growing in both quality and quantity and is becoming the first choice for medical treatment.The fifth chapter explains the "golden poison" in middle ages. The first section indicates that gold are regarded as poisonous. When eaten, it will kill a man. But it refers specifically to golden fragments—raw gold. According to the historical record, back to "Caowei" and " Xijin" period three cases of death are cause by drinking gold. The reason why raw gold is poisonous is because of the toxic ingredients like lead and mercury in it. But when it is refined, the purity of gold increases while other toxic elements are removed off, turning raw gold into refined gold. The refined gold is not regarded as toxic."Golden poison" can remind people of death caused by eating gold. But according to the author’s survey, these people died because they are choked rather than toxicity of gold or silver. When gold are eaten, it may block organs for indigestion of gold. When some sharp golden hair clasps are eaten, they may cut visceral into blood or wound, causing other diseases and death in the end. In a word, eating gold to death is mechanical wounds instead of chemical ones.When "golden poison" is mentioned, it reminds people of the relationship between gold and healthy. The author finds that many scholars haven’t paid attention to the fact that there are two kinds of edible gold. The first type is golden drug made from "Huangbaishu". The second type is raw gold. These two types are different in nature. Therefore, in the second section, situation about eating golden drug and gold are introduced after a survey of some historical materials in order to explore the cultural connotation and beliefs embodied in it.