Through means unknown to me (she said she searched “Buddhist jewelry” or something), my girlfriend has come across some “alchemical metal” called Lohid alloy. Google insists this metal only exists on the handful of sites selling what appears to be the exact same ring. One site says it was made by Thai alchemical masters “until after the 19th century” and that the means of making it has been lost (verdict is out on why it only costs you 50 bucks then, but whatever). It apparently shines rapidly as you wear it, suggesting some sort of mood-ring-ness to me in its composition. We’ve also determined it likely contains some degree of mercury since the other alloys mentioned on one of the pages have mercury, and the “effects” of wearing it are oddly similar to mercury poisoning.
Even though it’s really obscure, I thought I’d take a stab in the dark and see if anyone knows anything concrete. If you need to take a look, searching Google for Lohid alloy should give you only the few pages with the ring on it.
Mercury and its alloys are not that bad. Dentists have used silver and gold alloys of mercury, amalgams, to fill teeth for years. When reacted with other materials, mercury becomes available to the body and very nasty.
An amalgam isn’t an alloy. The mercury is physically “caged” by the silver, and the two are mixed below the melting point (or even the eutectic point):
I normally hate to be too critical, even 'tho the world ‘alchemical’ outside of history make me itchy, but …
OK, what does this even mean. This is complete grammar disconnect. Something ‘shines intensely’, means it glows, but ‘shines rapidly’ means what? It’s mood metal? OK, I’ll play along but what do you think the page means when it says what it says?
By the way, the word lohid is probably derived from Sanskrit lohita (Hindi lohit), meaning “coppery” or “reddish”, often used for copper itself. So I’m betting this mystical metal is some kind of copper alloy.
It amuses me that this thread is the top Google result for this junk now. Maybe that portends a spam run, maybe that portends some shills, maybe that portends some well-meaning yahoos who will try to come in and tell us it isn’t a scam, honest!
I do not know about the Thai (or Siamease), but there was a long tradition of Chinese alchemy (or, at least, a tradition that Westerners have long referred to as a form of alchemy). It differed from Western and Islamic alchemy in that it was more concerned with finding an elixir of eternal life than with making gold, but it was similar in that it involved mucking around with various substances and chemical techniques (mostly derived from metalurgical techniques) without anyone really knowing what they were doing, and with a lot of mysticism, secrecy and intentional obfuscation also involved.
Chinese alchemists also had a great fondness for mercury (as did Western ones). The emperor Qin Shi Huang, the one who first unified China, is said to have been very anxious to find this elixir, and to have eventually died from taking mercury containing medicine in the belief that it would keep him alive. Thus it is not unreasonable to think that Chinese alchemists (or some Siamese branch of the tradition) might have made rings out of some sort of mercury alloy and claimed that they would have healthful effects.
Of course, none of that provides any reason to think that the rings actually would have healthful effects. Many traditional medicines do not work, and not a few are actively harmful. Nevertheless, it does not seem implausible to me that there might really be some real oriental tradition about such an alloy.
Interesting. I thought pretty much all alchemists were interested in finding the elixir of life and that the lead to gold was a secondary goal in order to make funding easier. No need for a noble patron to report to if you can just turn lead into gold for all your expense needs!
Dentists have NOT used mercury amalgam for fillings for a number of years and started recommending the removal and replacment with light cured subistutes.
Not true. My dentist still uses it. My wife – a dental technician – attends a dental conference every year. The use of silver amalgam is still defended, and it’s claimed that the removal of amalgam releases unwanted mercury, so that it’s safer to leave it in place.
Never heard of any of this stuff.