Medicine for the Material World

ABSTRACT It is clear that many of the inorganic materials of antiquity have been used both as medicines for human ills and also as agents in technological processes. This paper speculates that there might have been a stronger link between these two functions in the past, based on the concept of “active agents”—materials that are efficacious at curing human ills are also effective in curing “ills” in the material world, such as soft metal or discolored glass. More broadly, this paper is intended to encourage scholars to take a wider perspective on the role of inorganic materials in human lives, rather than being constrained by what might be an arbitrary division between the histories of medicinal pharmacology and technological processes.