Taming the Poisonous Mercury, Toxicity, and Safety in Tibetan Medical Practice

Barbara Gerke's new book "Taming the Poisonous: Mercury, Toxicity, and Safety in Tibetan Medical Practice" is rich ethnographic and socio-historical account uncovers how toxicity and safety are expressed transculturally in a globalizing world. For the first time, it unpacks the “pharmaceutical nexus” of mercury in Tibetan medicine, where, since the thirteenth century, it has mainly been used in the form of tsotel (btso thal). Tsotel, an organometallic mercury sulfide compound, is added in small amounts to specific medicines to enhance the potency of other ingredients. In concordance with tantric Buddhist ideas, Tibetan medical practitioners confront and tame poisonous substances, and instead of avoiding or expelling them, transform them into potent medicines and elixirs.