Abstract:
Siddha Medicine was offered to the people from God through Siddhars.
There are 64 types of Paasanam where four types are mostly poisons such as
Thalakam (Orpiment-Arsenic trisulphide), Manoshilai (Realgar-Arsenic
disulphide), White-arsenic (Arsenium Acidum Arseniosum) and
Gouripashanam (Arsenic oxide). Thalakam is an organic compound with the
formula As2S3. It is used as internal as well as external medicine after the
purification. Our objectives are finding the purification method (using toddy
and limestone mixture) and identify the chemical component of Arsenic
trisulphide before and after the purification. Thalakam was chemically
analyzed by the routine qualitative analysis and purified with the method
mentioned in the text book. The pH values of toddy and limestone taken from
Jaffna shows 3.13, 12.76 respectively and toddy collected Mannar shows pH
as 3.01. The sample 1 taken for the analysis for 10 times with the 30 minutes
time interval shows Sulphate, Mn+
, Sr2+ and Ca2+, Whereas the sample 2,
which was analyzed 4 times with the 24 hour time interval shows Sulphate,
Arsenate, As3+, Sr2+, Ca2+. The detail analysis shows that Thalakam
contained Sulphate, Arsenate, Al3+, Ca2+, As3+, Sr2+ but after the purification
it contained all the ions except Al3+. This phenomenon is further confirmed
by the loss of weight in both samples before and after the purification.
