The Silk Roads as a Model for Exploring Eurasian Transmissions of Medical Knowledge:

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Wang Yuanlu, a Daoist monk in the western frontiers of China accidentally discovered a cave full of manuscripts near the Chinese town of Dunhuang, in Gansu province. The cave, which had been sealed for nearly a thousand years, contained several tonnes of manuscripts. This cave, now known as Cave 17, or the 'library cave' was sealed in the early 11 th century for reasons which are still being debated by scholars. 2 Following this discovery, a race between the great nations of the time began, to acquire as many manuscripts as possible. Today these manuscripts are dispersed between libraries in Paris,

Toxic remedies: Poisons and medicine in Eurasian history

“…As Yoeli‐Tlalim (2021, p. xi) observes, in discussing trans‐Eurasian encounters along the Silk Road(s): ‘We have much to gain by looking at the landmasses, languages and cultures in question as continuums, rather than clearly defined entities with lines of one sort or another drawn neatly around them.’ For her Central Asia was a vital pivot in these long‐distance transactions in medical ideas, substances, personnel and texts; but, in keeping with recent historiography, she also acknowledges the ‘new thalassology’ and the significance of the Indian Ocean as a ‘maritime Silk Road’ (2021, p. 16; cf. Yoeli‐Tlalim, 2019). Expanding the geographical remit of medicinal poisons, while at the same time focussing on ‘life on the ground’ (2021, p. 1), in local interactions and exchanges, helps critique the presumed insularity and self‐sufficiency of European medical knowledge and the supposed exclusivity of discrete ‘medical systems’.…”