The May of the lunar calendar is known as the "poison month" in Chinese folk custom. The weather is hot and Cordyceps is breeding. It is a season prone to diseases and poisoning. Dragon Boat Festival, boat racing food dumplings. In this traditional festival of universal celebration, eating zongzi and rowing dragon boat are also long-standing traditions. So why drink realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival?
The Dragon Boat Festival is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. According to the records of Jingchu Sui Shi Ji, Shunyang is on the top of the mountain in midsummer, and may is midsummer. Its first noon day is the day of good weather. Therefore, the fifth day of May is also called the Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional cultural festival popular in China and other countries in the circle of Chinese character culture.
Why drink realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival? In 340 BC, Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet and official of Chu state, faced with the pain of national subjugation, threw a big stone into the Guluo River on May 5. It is said that after Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, people in Qu Yuan's hometown threw zongzi and salted eggs into the river in order not to let the Dragon eat Qu Yuan's body. An old doctor took a jar of realgar wine and poured it into the river. He said that it could cure Yulong and protect Qu Yuan. After a while, a dragon really floated on the water. So people pulled the Dragon ashore, pulled its tendons and peeled its skin, then wrapped the tendons around the wrists and necks of the children, and then smeared the seven orifices with realgar wine, thinking that this would protect the children from insects and snakes. It is said that this is the origin of drinking realgar wine on the Dragon Boat Festival. And until now, many places in China also keep the habit of drinking realgar wine during the Dragon Boat Festival.
What is realgar wine? Realgar wine as a traditional Chinese medicine, realgar can be used as an antidote, insecticide. So ancient people believed that realgar could control snakes, scorpions and other insects. "Realgar is good at killing all kinds of poisons, expelling all kinds of evils, controlling poisonous insects, being admired by people, entering the mountains and forests to hide tigers and wolves, and entering the rivers to avoid all kinds of poisons.". Realgar has a long history as a medicine. Its property is hard, warm and poisonous. It belongs to liver, stomach and large intestine meridians. It is mainly used to kill insects, detoxify and treat carbuncle, eczema, scabies and snakebite. Realgar wine has a strong role in killing pests. In ancient China, realgar wine was one of the main disinfectants in summer. It is often sprayed under the bed, corner and other dark places to avoid the harm of poisonous insects.
Realgar, also known as realgar, Shihuang, xunheuang and Goldstone, is produced in Hunan, Gansu, Yunnan and Sichuan. Realgar is warm, slightly pungent and poisonous. It can be applied externally and taken orally. It is mainly used for detoxification and insecticidal, and external use for the treatment of sores and snake bites. A small amount of realgar can cure convulsion and sore poison. However, due to its corrosive power, realgar must be ordered by the doctor and brewed in accordance with the ancient method. It can be used as medicine and strong stimulant in pharmaceutical industry. High grade realgar and orpiment can be directly used as traditional Chinese medicine.
The main chemical composition of realgar is arsenic sulfide. Realgar will be converted into arsenic trioxide by redox reaction after heating, that is, highly toxic arsenic. It can be seen that drinking heated realgar wine is actually taking poison. Alcohol can dilate blood vessels and accelerate the absorption of arsenic in the digestive tract and skin. In a short period of time, arsenic poisoning occurs in more than ten minutes and in an elderly period of 4-5 hours. Mild cases are characterized by pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and "rice hogwash like" stool. In severe cases, it may lead to death. There is no scientific reason to spread realgar wine on a child's head, nose tip, earlobe or body. However, most of realgar cannot be absorbed because it is insoluble in water and soluble in dilute nitric acid.