The maid Snow Iris in the TV series "Beauty and The Heart", because empress Dou Yifang and her lover Zhou Yafu had a conflict, sandwiched between the two and the two were embarrassed, and chose to swallow gold to commit suicide; "Dream of the Red Chamber" You Erjie is the outer chamber secretly raised by Jia Fu's "Second Master Lian", after being tortured by Wang Xifeng of the main room with various delicate means, she felt that she could not see the hope of life, and also committed suicide by swallowing gold with tears.
It can be seen that in film and television dramas and classical novels, "swallowing gold to commit suicide" is a very frequent plot, many people will mistakenly think that swallowing gold is a kind of beautification of "taking poison", and some gold eaters mistakenly think that gold is poisonous, which causes death. But the gold element itself is actually non-toxic, why did the ancients choose this way to end their lives?
Cao Xueqin, the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber", lived in ancient times, and the content he wrote can better represent the ancient people's views on "swallowing gold". Why did Sister You swallow gold? Because she heard people say that "gold can fall to death", she felt that leaving in this way was cleaner than killing herself (there will be wounds that will bleed and look dirty) and hanging (it will be unrecognizable).
That is to say, You Erjie did not feel that the gold was poisonous before swallowing, but felt that when the gold reached the body, it would sink so much that the human body could not bear it, although it was very laborious to swallow (original: several times straight neck swallowed), but it could keep the face after death not so terrible. However, the ancients' swallowing of gold did have the possibility of dying from poisoning.
Li Shizhen wrote in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "Poisonous gold is raw gold, out of the Guangshan stone, red and poisonous..." The smelting and purification of minerals and even salt and other substances by the ancients is not as fine as in modern times, so minerals like gold may still carry some impurities after repeated artificial smelting and purification, and these impurities are the real causes of death;
In addition, according to Li Shizhen, in ancient times, there were indeed people who specialized in "refining poison" from minerals, and raw gold was also a choice, so it is not excluded that the ancients still swallowed the situation in the mouth when they knew that it was poisonous. However, modern scholars pointed out that the death caused by swallowing gold is mostly due to poor ancient medical technology, and the rupture and bleeding of the digestive tract after gold is in the body, which cannot be treated, and the ancients mistakenly thought that it was poisoning;
If the surface of the gold is smooth enough, if the "Temple of the Five Viscera" in the body does not receive it, it may be discharged to the Five Grain Reincarnation House. All in all, even in modern times, swallowing gold is a very dangerous thing, and once swallowing is not timely, there is no room for regret. Historically, there are indeed records of death by swallowing gold:
The "History of Ming" records that during the ming xianzong period, Wan Guifei flew high and did not allow other women in the harem to have children, and the eunuch Zhang Min helped a palace maid give birth to the later Ming Xiaozong Zhu Youfan, and after being learned by Wan Guifei, she was afraid of being attacked and swallowed gold and died. However, there is a doubt about this matter, the "History of Ming" was compiled and revised by the Qing Emperor organization...
In addition, in the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang had an aide named Dai Zongqian, who in the early days suppressed the Twist Army with Li Hongzhang, and Shengzhi County was also promoted to prefect, and was also responsible for supervising the defense of Weihaiwei, but on January 20, 1895, Dai Zongqian was defeated by the Japanese army, knew that he was guilty, and chose to swallow gold and commit suicide.
From this point of view, this way should also be widely known in the late Qing Dynasty, and in modern times, because of the influence of film and television dramas, there are really people imitating! But the author would like to say that life is very precious, at any time do not feel that the "death" in film and television dramas is poignant, and it will be extremely painful to really do it in reality.