mercury, ayurveda
Mercury, which is of course a deadly poison, must be carefully purified before it is used in medicine. Even after purification mercury is too powerful to use in metallic form, however. Most commonly it is reacted with sulfur to form black sulfide of mercury, which after heating becomes red sulfide of mercury. Sulfur is the menstrual blood of Shiva's wife Parvati, the only substance that can properly control mercury's tremendous power. Since sulfur is a form of Blood which can create other beings, it is as if sulfur acts as the womb in which the mercurial semen develops into the new child: Kajjali, black sulfide of mercury.
Sulfur's affinity for heavy metals has long been known. The active portion of BAL, the first drug developed to remove heavy metals from the body, is two sulfur atoms. Black sulfide of mercury is almost totally insoluble in either water or weak acids, and so the potential for poisoning by free mercury is very low. Red sulfide of mercury is slightly more soluble, but its potential for causing toxicity is also low. In fact, mercury sulfide's innate safety is recognized even today, for it is used industrially to help scavenge stray elemental mercury.
There is no disease which mercury cannot cure if it is properly prepared and used, say the texts, and if it is improperly prepared or misused there is no disease it cannot cause. No proof of the second half of the ancient saying is necessary; all of us know how poisonous mercury is. The first half of the saying has been proved over centuries of safe use of mercury in Ayurvedic medicines. When side-effects arise from mercurial medications they may result from impurities which were not removed before the mercury is processed or from improper processing.
Robert E. Svoboda. Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution. 1988. Chapter 8. Rejuvenation § Minerals and Metals
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