BLOODTHIRSTY MERCURY- 18TH-CENTURY

ROMAN GODS, TOILET ARCHAEOLOGY, DROOLING SYPHILITICS, AN IMMORTAL WANT-TO-BE, AND FALSE SNAKES ARE ALL PART OF THIS STORY. By Vikrant Rohin

The infant’s fingers and toes had turned chilly, bloated, and red. Similar to blanched tomatoes, whose skins peeled back from the fruit, the flesh was splitting off. She had lost weight, wailed petulantly, and torn her skin apart with her claws from the raging itching. Her fever occasionally rose to 102 degrees.

She would have been seen as insane as an adult if she had been sitting up in her crib, hitting her head with her hands, ripping out her hair, screaming, and aggressively clawing everyone who came close, according to her mother.

Eventually, because of the patient’s painful hands and feet, her ailment was given the name acrodynia, which means “painful tips.” But in 1921, doctors gave the infant’s condition the name Pink’s Disease because they were noticing an increase in cases every year. Physicians battled for a while to pinpoint the cause. Arsenic, ergot, allergies, and viruses were all implicated. But by the 1950s, a large number of cases linked the sick children to calomel, a common ingredient.

 In an effort to soothe their baby’ aching gums during teething, parents applied one of the several teething powders with calomel that were readily available. DR. MOFFETT’S TEETHING POWDER, which also claimed to “Strengthen the Child” and “Relieve the Bowel Troubles of Children of Any Age,” was very well-liked at the time. It also advertised that it might, seductively, “Make baby fat as a pig.”

 Alongside the unsettling promise of Hansel and Gretel-esque outcomes, calomel also held the threat of mercury. Mercury-containing goods have a long history of making claims that they can treat a wide range of curiously unconnected illnesses. You name it, and someone claimed that mercury could cure it: depression, constipation, syphilis, influenza, parasites, etc.

In its liquid state (quicksilver) or as a salt, mercury has been employed extensively for centuries at all societal levels. The latter group included the likes of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, ANDREW JACKSON (the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837) LOUISA MAY ALCOTT (American novelist, short story writer, and poet ), AND EDGAR ALLAN POE(an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic ), who all employed the substance calomel, also known as mercurous chloride. Why? That is a more in-depth tale.

CALOMEL: PURGING IT ALL AWAY

 Calomel was the medication from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. Its name is derived from the Greek words for excellent and black (called so because it has the propensity to turn black in the presence of ammonia). Calomel, despite sounding similar to caramel, is not the same thing, despite carrying the nauseating names “worm candy” and “worm chocolate” for treating parasites. Calomel appears to be a pretty harmless white powder that has no smell on its own. Don’t let that fool you, though; it’s just as innocuous as your khaki-clad neighbour next door who has a basement full of bone saws hidden.  Calomel is a powerful cathartic when taken orally, which is a fancy way of stating it will aggressively empty your bowels into the toilet. Opening the rectal gates of hell was a symbol of making things right because constipation has long been connected to illness.

 Some people think that the “black” in its name came from the dark stools that were expelled and were mistaken for bile. According to an idea that dates back to the time of Hippocrates and Galen, letting bile “flow freely” was beneficial for maintaining the body’s equilibrium and the well-being of the humours. And wasn’t it preferable to cleanse the body of such pollutants if the insides of the bowels were dark and slimy?

 As a sign of mercury toxicity, there was also a “purging” in the form of copious volumes of unsightly drooling. A rabid dog couldn’t compete with a calomel consumer. Surely it was a positive thing if the nasty material was spit out by profuse salivation? Paracelsus, who lived in the sixteenth century, thought that producing three pints of saliva was necessary to generate “effective” (i.e., toxic) amounts of mercury. It’s a tonne of spit, really. Thus, doctors discovered calomel to be their preferred medication at a time when overflowing latrines and gallons of boogie were the cure for a variety of maladies.

 One such doctor was Benjamin Rush. Dr. Rush, a founding father, and signer of the Declaration of Independence fought for the education of women and the eradication of slavery. He was a pioneer in the compassionate care of psychiatric patients, but he mistakenly believed that calomel was the most effective medication for treating mental illness. He offered the following as a remedy for hypochondria:

 By abstracting pathological excitement from the brain to the mouth, mercury works in this sickness, 1 2, by removing internal barriers. And three, by rerouting the patient’s concerns and blaming them entirely on his painful mouth. If the salivation causes the patient to harbour some hatred towards their doctor or friends, it will be even more beneficial.

 Resentment against your physician and best friend is a wonderful side effect! Yet in actuality, Rush was substituting heavy metal toxicity for hypochondria. Mercurial erethism, a neurological disease that causes frequent sighs, pathological shyness, anxiety, and depression, was another adverse impact. These signs were frequently referred to as “crazy hatter’s illness” or “hatter’s shakes” together with limb tremors (for the hat-making workers who used mercury in the felting process). Moreover, patients who were toxic would experience tooth loss, decayed jaw bones, and gangrenous cheeks that caused facial holes where ulcerated tongues and gums could be seen. What if Rush’s patients evolved into incredibly depressed Walking Dead extras as a result of his success?

 Dr. Rush became a fervent supporter of excessive quantities of calomel and bloodletting (also known as “heroic depletion therapy”) after the mosquito-borne Yellow Fever virus struck Philadelphia in 1793. Sometimes calomel dosages five times higher than usual were used. This was deemed excessive even by the purge-loving medical establishment. His techniques were criticised by Philadelphia College of Medicine members as “murderous” and “suited for a horse.” Author William Cobbett had earlier referred to Rush as a “powerful quack” in 1788.

 Thomas Jefferson put the death rate from yellow fever at 33% at the time. Subsequently, in 1960, it was discovered that Rush’s patients had a 46% death rate. Not really a step up from the present situation.

In the end, the outbreak was put to an end by Dr. Rush’s efforts to improve Philadelphia’s sanitation and standing water issue as well as a good, mosquito-killing first frost of autumn. Alexander Hamilton, a close friend of Dr. Rush who had fallen ill himself, sought the help of a different medical professional who used kinder techniques. Hamilton stated, “I was always opposed to my friend… whom I sincerely liked; but who had done much evil, in the deepest faith that he was protecting life, in his doctrine of bleeding and mercury. Dr. Rush’s reputation perished, but Hamilton did not. He had no medical practise left by the turn of the century.

Author: Master Vikrant RohinMaster Vikrant Rohin is an international author, and more than four countries’ schools are using his books in the core curriculum of education. He is the author of twenty different subject books. History, Economics, Chemistry, Physics, English, Biology, Geography etc. Most of his students hold high-ranking positions in the public and private sectors. He has cracked the world’s toughest exam, the "Civil Services Examination (UPSC)," eight times. Always a topper in academics, he was also a top-class sportsman, a state boxer, and a basketball player.