Cold-Food Powder (), also known as Five Minerals Powder(), was a poisonous psychoactive drug popular in China from the Six Dynasties (220–589) to the Tang dynasty (618–907). Its ingredients typically included five minerals such as fluorite, quartz, and sulphur, often combined with highly toxic substances containing arsenic and mercury. Because it induced intense hyperthermia, users were required to ingest cold foods, bathe in cold water, and undertake xingsan (行散)—a practice of walking to circulate the powder—giving rise to the name "Cold-Food Powder."
Originally a Han dynasty medicinal formula, it became fashionable among the upper gentry after the Cao Wei scholar He Yan claimed it made his "spirit and intelligence receptive and lucid." The drug became a signature of the unconventional ming shi (名士) lifestyle and influenced contemporary fashion, encouraging loose robes and clogs. Due to its severe toxicity, long-term use could lead to disability or death; its popularity declined after the Tang, and by the Song dynasty its name was largely abandoned, though similar mineral-based remedies persisted under other names.
Terminology Both Chinese names and have the suffix , which means "medicine in powdered form" in Traditional Chinese medicine. (lit. "five rocks") refers to the component mineral drugs, typically fluorite, quartz, red bole clay, stalactite, and sulfur. (lit. "cold food") refers to eating cold foods and bathing in cold water to counteract the drug-induced hyperthermia produced by the pyretic powder. Hanshi can also refer to the traditional Chinese holiday , three days in early April when lighting a fire is prohibited and only cold foods are eaten.
, meaning "walking after having taken a powder" (compare walk off), was a therapeutic practice believed to circulate poisonous inorganic drug throughout the body, thus enhancing the psychoactive effects and preventing side effects. Mather claims the practice of xingsan "to walk a powder" was adopted from Xian Daoism, the "Immortality Cult" of the late Han period.
Although some authors transliterate the Chinese terms and (e.g., han-shih san), many translate them. Compare these renderings of wushisan and/or hanshisan: powder of the five minerals & swallowed-cold powder five-mineral powder & cold-food powder Five-Stone Powder & Eat-Cold Powder Five-mineral-powder Five minerals powder & Powder to take with cold food Cold Food powder five-mineral-powder cold eating powder Cold Food Powder Five Minerals Powder & Cold-Food Powder Cold-Food Powder Minor differences in capitalization and hyphenation generally account for these English variants.
History Five Minerals Powder was used medicinally in the 2nd century BCE, became a popular recreational entheogen and stimulant, known as Cold-Food Powder, among prominent counterculture literati during the 3rd century, and was deemed immoral and condemned after the 10th century.
Han dynasty Texts from the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) refer to using the Wushi Five Minerals to cure fevers and to prolong life.
The (109–91 BCE) Shiji biography of the physician Chunyu Yi (, c. 216–147 BCE) contains the earliest Five Minerals reference. This history includes 25 case reports by Chunyu, including one in which he treated a Dr. Sui () for poisoning around 160 BCE. Sui, the Physician-in-waiting to the Prince of [Qi], fell ill. He had himself made preparations of the Five Minerals and had consumed them []. Your servant therefore went to visit him, and he said 'I am unworthy and have some disease; would you be so kind as to examine me?' So I did, and then addressed him in these terms: 'Your malady is a fever []. The Discussions say that when there is a central fever along with obstipation and suppression of urine one must not ingest the Five Minerals. Mineral substances considered as drugs are fierce and potent, and it is because of having taken them that you have several times failed to evacuate. They ought not to be hastily taken. Judging by the colour, an abscess is forming.' ... I warned him that after a hundred days or more an abscess would gather above the pectoral region, that it would penetrate (the flesh by) the collar-bone, and that he would die. () Needham describes this pharmaceutical use of the Five Minerals "the first well-documented evidence of the taking of inorganic substances" in China.
The (c. 1st century BCE) Liexian Zhuan biography of the legendary Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE) Daoist xian "immortal" or "transcendent" Qiong Shu () mentions the Five Minerals. It says Qiong, roasted and ate stalactites (), which he called . He also slept on a stone bed and lived for several hundred years on Mount Song. Qiong obtained the Eight Delicious Foods and Five Minerals, which all provide longevity, and refined their essences into dumplings. A person can thus live to be one hundred, have a light body, sleep among mountain peaks, and wander with the Daoist immortals.
The Han scholar and alchemist Zheng Xuan (127–200) specified that to make , the medically active minerals chalcanthite (), cinnabar (, red mercury sulphide), realgar (the arsenic sulphide or ) and magnetite () should be enclosed in an earthen receptacle, continuously heated over three days. The drug obtained from the concoction could then be applied to the affected areas of the sick body.
The Han pharmacologist and physician Zhang Zhongjing includes two similar prescriptions in Jingui Yaolüe: (also known as ) and (also ). Huangfu Mi and other traditional Chinese medicine practitioners trace the wushisan to Zhang's work. This book remains a fundamental text in traditional Chinese medicine.
Six Dynasties
The historical term "Six Dynasties" collectively refers to the Three Kingdoms (220–280), Jin dynasty (266–420), and Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589). Sources from this period of disunity after the fall of the Han describe both medicinal and recreational uses of Five Mineral Powder or Cold Food Powder.
The Three Kingdoms scholar and doctor Huangfu Mi (215–282) took this "ecstasy-inducing drug" to recover from a stroke, but suffered and likely died from the deleterious side effects. His records his disastrous self-medication that resulted in "pain and a general numbness and weakness of the body". Huangfu said, "The longest one can hope to live when taking the drug is ten years or so; for some, it is only five or six. Even though I myself can still see and breathe, my words resemble the loud laugh of someone who is presently drowning."
The Book of Jin says that Huangfu Mi used hanshisan poisoning as an excuse to decline a position offered by Emperor Wu (r. 265–290). The Cold Food Powder "disagreed with his nature and each time he was convulsed with excruciating pain. Once in a rage of suffering he prayed for a sword with which to kill himself, but his aunt remonstrated with him and made him stop." Huangfu said that the vogue for consuming Cold-Food Powder began with the Cao Wei state (220–265) scholar and politician He Yan (c. 195–249), who used the drug to achieve greater spiritual clarity and physical strength. He Yan and his friend Wang Bi (226–249), co-founders of the Daoist Xuanxue School, propagated the consumption of the drug in their philosophical circles. The French sinologist Paul Demiéville's described He Yan: "He was reckoned a paragon of beauty, elegance, and refinement, a floating flower (fou-hua) as his enemies used to say, or a dandy. He "loved Lao-Huang" and shone in "pure conversation." His lack of constraint brought down on him the ill-will of the orthodox traditionalists. He is even said to have brought into fashion a drug that brought on a state of ecstasy, and many of his friends and epigones were drug addicts."
Many other famous literati, such as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, especially the musician Ruan Ji (210–263), the alchemist Ji Kang (223–262), and the calligrapher Wang Xizhi (c. 303–361), reportedly were enthusiastic users of the drug. "Like an indulgent lifestyle of alcoholic excesses, the use of this drug became the hallmark of the free thinkers of the age". Livia Kohn describes Ruan Ji's artistic expression, His friends and fellow poets induced ecstatic experiences through music, wine, and drugs, especially the notorious Cold Food Powder which created psychedelic states and made the body feel very hot, causing people to take off their clothes and jump into pools. When back in their ordinary selves, they wrote poetry of freedom and escape, applying the Zhuangzi concept of free and easy wandering in the sense of getting away from it all and continuing the text's tradition in their desperate search for a better world within.
The extant calligraphic writings attributed to Wang Xizhi mention taking hanshisan, for instance, two letters to his friend Zhou Fu (, d. 365), Regional Inspector of Yizhou prefecture. A thank-you note requests Zhou to send , "Turkestan salt is another thing I require. I need it when I take Cold-Food Powder."; and a lament over their 26-year separation says, "Of late, I have been missing you more than I can say. I have been taking Cold-Food Powder for a long time, but I am still weak."
The Jin dynasty Daoist scholar Ge Hong's (c. 320) Baopuzi ("[Book of the] Master Who Embraces Simplicity") contains invaluable details about the drug powders. Three of the esoteric "Inner Chapters" (1–20) refer to taking Cold-Food Powder, and using the Five Minerals to make waidan "external alchemy" miracle elixirs and magic daggers. One of the exoteric "Outer Chapters" (21–52) criticizes using Five Minerals Powder during mourning.
"The Genie's Pharmacopeia" (chap. 11) compares jade and Cold-Food Powder as drugs that can cause fevers. Whether taken in small fragments or liquefied and sipped, jade renders man immortal. It is inferior to gold, however, in that it frequently causes fever, for it resembles han-shih-san. When jade is taken in small fragments, a spatula of both realgar and cinnabar should be taken once every ten days. Then you will not run a fever when traveling against the wind after you have taken down your hair, washed it, and bathed. Compare Sailey's translation that after taking the drug one "loosens his hair and takes a bath: [having used] cold water, he welcomes the breeze and goes walking. Thus he does not get a fever."
Two other Baopuzi Inner Chapters mention wushi. First, "Gold and Cinnabar" (chap. 4) has several references. The Five Minerals are used to produce the Jiuguangdan () elixir that will supposedly raise the dead. There is also the Ninefold Radiance Elixir, which uses a method similar but not quite like that of the Nine-Cycle Elixir. Various ingredients are mixed and fired separately with each of the five minerals, cinnabar, realgar, arsenolite, laminar malachite, and magnetite []. Each mineral is put through five cycles and assumes five hues, so that altogether twenty-five hues result. Separate containers are each filled with one ounce of each hue. If you wish to raise a body that has not been dead for fully three days, bathe the corpse with a solution of one spatula of the blue elixir, open its mouth, and insert another spatula full; it will revive immediately. The Five Minerals are also ingredients for making: "T'ai-I's elixir for Summoning Gross and Ethereal Breaths" () that can revive a corpse up to four days after death, as well as "Mo Ti's elixir" (), "Ch'i-li's elixir" (), and "Duke Li's elixir" () that cure one's illnesses and, if taken over a long period, make one immortal.
Second, "Into Mountains: Over Streams" (chap. 17) tells how to make a Five Minerals protective charm that will ensure water-travel safety.