The Chinese Alchemist by Lyn Hamilton Page A

galleries,” Xie said. “He has therefore turned his attention to me, as you have no doubt already surmised, Ms. McClintoch.” I tried not to smile. “I believe you knew my late friend, Dory Matthews.”
    “I did,” I said. “I miss her.”
    “As do I,” he said. Burton looked really uncomfortable. He couldn’t possibly have been surprised that George Matthews wouldn’t donate to the Cottingham, given their treatment of his wife. Perhaps, though, Burton was unaware of Xie’s friendship with Dory. That comment should have told him in an instant that all this sycophantic posturing of his had been for naught.
    I had a pleasant chat with Dr. Xie, who, it turned out, supplied various brands of homeopathic remedies throughout the world, including North America. Dr. Xie had homes in both Beijing and Vancouver. He also had an office in Toronto. “You are surprised, perhaps, that I and George and Dory Matthews are friends. George and I are competitors of a sort, I suppose, but not really. His company and mine both manufacture products to make people well, but we take completely different approaches. He holds patents on drugs I suppose you would consider traditional, while I supply products that stem from a long tradition of Chinese medicine, treatments that 7 would call traditional. We often have heated discussions on the relative merits of our approaches, but we remain friends nonetheless.”
    “I don’t know George well at all, but I adored Dory,” I said. “She taught me everything I know about Chinese history and art.”
    “She was indeed very knowledgeable—George as well in the field in which he collects. Now, what do we have here?” he said, stopping in front of the silver box. It was open, and placed on a pedestal so that you could view it from all sides, which Dr. Xie did. “This contains a formula for the elixir of immortality,” he said after some study. “The author of the writing in this box was almost certainly an alchemist. That is most interesting.”
    “Alchemist? You mean someone who tries to turn base metals into gold?”
    “That was part of Chinese alchemy,” he said. “Yes, people did want to produce gold, just as alchemists in Europe did. But, like alchemists everywhere, there was a more spiritual dimension to their pursuit as well. Chinese alchemists wanted to become an Immortal, and to dwell in the otherworld with other Immortals. Alchemists here would have almost certainly espoused Taoism as their religion, and Taoists believe that both the
po
and the hun, the body and the spirit, remain after death. Just as a matter of interest, people went to extraordinary lengths to preserve their bodies. Some alchemists, and some Taoists, managed to more or less mummify themselves while they were still alive by eating only mica and pine gum.”
    I managed not to gag. Despite this rather strange interest in achieving immortality, Dr. Xie was an interesting and scholarly individual. “The pill or elixir of immortality was part of that process,” he continued. “You partook of it, and you became immortal. It could happen suddenly. One minute you’d be there, and the next you’d vanish, leaving your clothes behind you.”
    “Given the ingredients, things like arsenic and mercury, this elixir of immortality sounds a bit dangerous.”
    “And it was. You do know, though, that poisonous substances are used in the treatment of disease all the time,” he said. “Arsenic was, for a long time, just about the only successful treatment for syphilis, and after all, digitalis, or foxglove, is a poison that is used in the treatment of heart disorders. I could name many more. We treat allergies using tiny amounts of the substances the patient is allergic to, as well. Large amounts might result in anaphylactic shock and possibly death, but tiny amounts help you build up immunity. As for the elixir of immortality, many Chinese people, including emperors, knew the ingredients were toxic, but they took it in