What does ingesting mercury or lead fight against? While I understand modern medicine does sometimes use things that are toxic, it usually in net fixes what was needed. What does lead and mercury help with when eaten?
Mercury? It'd handle bowel complaints, like constipation. You can follow the Lewis and Clarke expedition by the mercury contamination of their campsites from the mercury laxatives used.
Lead? The opposite, it would control bowel complaints, specifically diarrhea.
Also source: I hold a First Responder's certification and have had to deal with poisoning of this nature before.
This is a question for those who are experts in the field of Rasa Shastra.[1][2] Just like questions regarding which poisons/toxins are injected into the human body as treatment, why, and for which illness are questions for experts in the appropriate specializations of modern medicine.
[1] A Text Book Of Rasa Shastra(Iatro-Chemistry And Ayurvedic Pharmaceutics) (https://chaukhamba.co.in/index.php?route=product/product&pro...)
[2] Introduction to ‘Rasashaastra’ the Iatrochemistry of Ayurveda (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252715/)
I don't think most traditional medicine practices are very useful. Similar to strict religious teaches of what food to eat, Catholic, Jewish, Sattvic diet even. They served a purpose when conceived, perhaps have interesting things that could benefit us today but in a whole. There may be an interesting herb or compound that is actually useful but usually the vast majority of it is either a placebo, damaging to the user or damaging to the environment.
> Ayurveda is based on the evidence of its times
So is globocentrism, but humans have learned since then, and moved onto more evidence based science. Science which was based on what we used to think was evidence, but no longer has evidence, is not evidence based science.