HEALING WITH MINERALS AND INORGANIC SUBSTANCES: MIEDIEVAL TO PRESENT DAY LEVANTINE MEDICINE PRACTICE

Inorganic materials have constituted part of the inventory of medicinal substances used in various cultures since ancient times, similar uses continue into present time in ethnic folk medicine. The medicinal interaction between humans and inorganic substances has been happening both in indigenous and Western societies throughout the globe. Minerals, metals, earths, organic minerals (e.g. asphalt, crude oil, glycerine, sulfanilamide, tartaric acid, vaseline) and other pure inorganic substances or mixtures that include such substances (e.g. ink) played an important, though minor role in the healing practice of the inhabitant of five continents. This paper critically records and systematically reviews the history of such uses made by the Levantine societies from Middle Ages to present day. General overview of the data reveals information about 23 inorganic substances used in the Levant throughout ages e.g. was recorded from the early medieval period to present day. These include alum, arsenic sulfides, asphalt, borax, Jew's stone, earth, Armenian earth, galena, hematite, iron, lead, lead oxide, mercury, mineral mumia, salt (NaCl), English salt, sulfur, tartaric acid, vitriol (blue, green), zinc. Fifty four substances were first recorded at the various ethno-pharmacological surveys of the 20th century. Few of these inorganic substances might have been used in the medieval Levant, however, were not recorded.