How to make realgar wine

Realgar wine is a kind of white wine or yellow wine made by crushing the raw materials. How to make realgar wine, Chinese people usually drink it during the Dragon Boat Festival. Realgar wines need to be exposed to the sun, and some wines are exposed on the fifth day of May. As a traditional Chinese medicine, realgar can be used as an antidote and insecticide. Therefore, the ancients believed that realgar could suppress snakes, scorpions and a hundred other insects.

Custom 1: Inserting mugwort and hanging sachets Function: Repel mosquitoes and prevent colds

Realgar wine

There are many things to pay attention to when celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival. "Plant willows on Qingming Festival and insert mugwort on Dragon Boat Festival." At dawn on the Dragon Boat Festival, every household will insert two mugwort and calamus on the doors and windows. Mugwort can ward off evil spirits.

In addition, parents will hang a sachet on their children to ward off evil spirits and drive away miasma. The sachets distributed for free by Junhetang this time are homemade, and the Chinese medicinal materials used include Chuanxiong, Angelica dahurica, Atractylodes macrocephala, borneol, and mint, 5 grams of each. Grind these Chinese medicines into fine powder, then put them in a cloth bag and sew it up. It can be worn on the chest, waist or navel, or the sachet can be hung indoors or in the car.

Professor Cai Deheng, director of a traditional Chinese medicine department in Shanghai, said that from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, mugwort is an aromatic and turbid-clearing Chinese medicine with a strong effect in expelling toxins and eliminating plague. Hanging and burning mugwort can kill bacteria and disinfect and prevent the spread of plague. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that sachets have the effects of dispersing wind and cold, strengthening the spleen and stomach, and preventing mosquitoes and diseases. Children hang the sachets on their chests, and they can smell them to repel mosquitoes and prevent colds.

Custom 2: Side effects of drinking realgar wine: can cause anemia

On the Dragon Boat Festival, people gather together to drink realgar wine, which is a kind of white wine or yellow wine soaked with realgar powder. It is usually consumed on the Dragon Boat Festival. Ancient people believed that realgar can restrain snakes, scorpions and other insects, "can kill all kinds of poisons, ward off all kinds of evil, and control poison. If a person wears it, tigers and wolves will lie in wait when they enter the mountains and forests, and they will be intimidated when they enter the rivers and lakes."

Realgar wine

In Chinese myths and legends, realgar wine is often used to restrain animals that have cultivated into spirits. For example, the white snake spirit Bai Niangzi, who had transformed into a human form, accidentally drank realgar wine and lost control, revealing her true form. Therefore, the ancients not only sprinkled realgar powder in places where mosquitoes and insects breed, but also drank realgar wine in the hope of warding off evil spirits and keeping themselves from getting sick. Professor Cai Deheng said that realgar wine contains arsenic, which is the main component of arsenic. Drinking realgar wine is equivalent to eating arsenic. Drinking it will inhibit hematopoiesis and cause anemia. Even small doses can cause damage to the liver; realgar is corrosive.