116v

[-JKP-]

Mineral cinnabar was toxic; the vegetable cinnabar not.  The latter was true 'minim' as well as being used in medicine and came from C.cinnabaris - or should have. Shonky salesmen aren't a new thing.

We get classical texts already talking about how second-grade physicians are getting the two sorts confused, and poisoning their patients, but there's no doubt it was possible to get the real thing even in the earlier medieval centuries, and even as far as England, even if supply seems to have been intermittent.

What we can't always be sure of, in the medieval recipes, is what is meant by cinnabar at any given time or in any given region.  I mean - you can't be sure from the recipes unless they specify, though cross-referencing with the pigments being used in manuscripts at that time gives a better indication.

I don't know how available they were in relation to each other. I know that alchemists and painters used the toxic cinnabar in the middle ages, but so far I don't have the impression that it was cheap or easy to get.

Vegetable cinnabar, dragon's blood, may have come from a variety of sources, since quite a number of plants give red sap and medieval merchants frequently made substitutions (e.g., false saffron for the more expensive real saffron), but the ancient cinnabar was Dracaena draco, which they may have imported into Spain via Morocco.


Mercury was a very common medicine until fairly recently. Even in the early 20th century, they were using it to treat syphilis, so it's very hard to know, when a recipe calls for a toxic substance, whether they mean one that is toxic or a nontoxic substance by the same name.
 
Vegetable cinnabar (Dracaena resin) isn't benign either. It contains a couple of substances that one probably shouldn't put in one's body and the seeds of the plant are toxic.

[Searcher]

Register or login to view the content

[-JKP-]

Register or login to view the content

[Anton]

Register or login to view the content

[-JKP-]

Register or login to view the content

[Anton]

Register or login to view the content

[-JKP-]

Register or login to view the content

[Searcher]

Register or login to view the content

[-JKP-]

Register or login to view the content

[-JKP-]

Register or login to view the content