Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c9.39

c9.39

§ 26. Mercury and Opium.—In order to go into the details of the application and history of particular medical substances a history of Indian botany, minerology, pharmacy and chemistry is required to be written, for which there is want of space here. Reference may be made to the rich material in Watt's *Economic Products of India*, Hoernle's Bower MS, Garbe's *Indische Mineralien* and other works quoted in § 17. In general, the use of minerals as medicines appears to have increased continually. The mercury (*pārada*) particularly attained the fame of a universal remedy which was used externally, especially for syphilis in later period, as well as internally. An entire class of literature was created on *rasa* (§ 3) in which other metals and minerals such as sulphur, gold etc. are also dealt with. Mercury is, therefore, called *rasendra, rasarāja, rasanātha*, the