This is a study of the medical history of the eatable Purslane and Indian Spinach, the analysis of their Mercurial content with special reference to Lee Kyu-Kyung's O Zoo Seo Zong which first noted the medical use of the herb for extracting mercury an...
This is a study of the medical history of the eatable Purslane and Indian Spinach, the analysis of their Mercurial content with special reference to Lee Kyu-Kyung's O Zoo Seo Zong which first noted the medical use of the herb for extracting mercury and also the measurement of their general content of inorganic mercury. Mercury pollution is one of our serious problems. The following are the summary.
1.Sin Nong Bon Cho Kyung takes purslne as the same group of Indian spinach. But according to its botanical characteristic and difference of the content of mercury, it was separated from Indian Spinach in the book of plants of 10th centry.
2.Purslane is used for everyday vegetables or emergent food because of its sour and mild characters and for healing psoriasis, dysentery or boil because of its sterilization.
3.The results of measuring the content of inorganic mercury according to purslane's growth stage and its parts were that from early stage leaf had mercuty 2-3 times more than stem and after 50days of sprout it contained mercury of 0.47ppm in leaf and 0.22 ppm in stem. And the contents was far less than the theory of the O Zoo Seo Jong of containing 5-6% but far more than another vegetables and cereals of nonpollution. And that it corresponded with the record of the book of plants that there were much mercury in leaf.
4.The content of mercury of Indian Spinach was far less than that of purslane and more than that of another vegetables and cereal of non-pollution.
5.When purslane was boiled, the content of mercury remained only 11% in leaf, 24% in stem and 27% in root.
6.The content of mineral of purslane and Indian Spinach didn't differ from those of other vegetables.