NOTES ON CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 



221 



Realgar Medicine-Cup on Carved Wooden Stand. 



#1 \^ Hung-sin ; Eed Sulphuret of Arsenic with Arseni- 

 ous Acid. A native mineral, constituting a highly crystalline, 

 striated mass, of a red or pinkish colour, mottled with white, 

 passing in places into a steel grey. It is composed of Red 

 sulphuret of arsenic with a large proportion of arsenious acid. 

 The dark parts are probably due to metallic arsenic. 



COMPOUNDS OF ZINC, LEAD, AND COPPER. 



Realgar 



Medicine 



Cups. 



Small shallow cups, elegantly carved out of this mineral, and 1860-62 

 often highly polished, are used by the Chinese for administering 

 certain medicines ; by which means, when the inner surface of 

 the cup is, as sometimes happens, in a somewhat disintegrated 

 condition, it is evident that a minute dose of arsenic may be 

 administered. One of these cups, with its fanciful wooden stand, 

 is represented in the annexed woodcut. Other carvings, but of 

 a purely ornamental nature, are also manufactured from realgar 

 by the Chinese, and from their magnificent red colour and fine 

 polish, are often of considerable beauty. A realgar medicine 

 cup brought to Paris by the Siamese ambassadors in 1684 was 

 examined chemically by Homberg. Hist, de I'Acad. Roy. dcs 

 Sciences (de Paris) annee 1703, p. 51. 



Foiv-kan-sMh, also called Loo-kan-shtih ; Zinc Zinc Bloom. 

 Bloom. Dana, Syst. of Mineralogy, ed. 4, vol. ii., p, 460. An 

 opaque white mineral, easily broken and marking the fingers 



