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Difference between revisions of "Mercury"

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|comes from=Holland, Italy, Germany, Gibraltar, Spain, Channel Islands, France, United States of America, Columbia, British North America, British West Indies, Austrian Territories, Hamburg, Portugal, China, South Africa, Russia,
 
|comes from=Holland, Italy, Germany, Gibraltar, Spain, Channel Islands, France, United States of America, Columbia, British North America, British West Indies, Austrian Territories, Hamburg, Portugal, China, South Africa, Russia,
 
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==Description==
 

Revision as of 14:45, 12 May 2016


A heavy, metallic element, mercury is curious in that it is liquid at room temperature. It is used in the production of gaseous chlorine and caustic soda. It was also used to make hats from animal furs.

Recorded as "Quicksilver" in the database

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)

Quicksilver and Mercury

A Compendium of Domestic Medicine, 1865

All page numbers are recorded as (PDF #/SOURCE #)

Entry for Quicksilver:

“Was known to the ancients, and employed by them in the art of gilding, and for other purposes in the arts. It is the basis of all mercurial preparations. In the time of Charles the Second’s reign, quicksilver was celebrated as an alternative, and was much used by the ladies of that period, in doses of a small teaspoonful night and morning, to beautify the complexion, remove freckles, and to produce the same effects as cosmetics.” (143-4/122-3)

Mercurial pill and mercury with chalk both classified by Savory as Aperients and Purgatives (411/390)

“It should, however, also be kept in mind, that medicines such as the mercurial salts, arsenic, digitalis, &c. are apt to accumulate in the system, and danger may hence arise if the doses too rapidly succeed each other.” (21/xvi)

Remedies Containing or to be used with Mercury

  • Calomel (56/35): “This mercurial preparation is more extensively and more usefully employed that most any other article of the Materia Medica.” Primarily used as a purgative, but is also an alternative and can have a positive impact of the effectiveness diuretics. It is commonly used in children suffering from fever (Savory states this is because fevers in children are regularly caused by “a disordered states of the stomach and intestines”).
  • Cretaceous Powder (66/45): used in combination with calomel and other mercurial, to prevent any disruption to the bowels
  • Iodine (106/85): combined with mercury to treat “chronic engagements of the liver.”
  • Mercurial Pill (Blue Pill) (122/101): “Is a most useful medicine in diseases connected with a diminished secretion of bile, in dyspepsia, scrofula, jaundice, syphilis, and cutaneous eruptions, and is by far the best form for the internal exhibition of mercury.”
  • Mercury with Chalk (123/102): given to children “to correct the biliary secretion… and especially to increase it when deficient in quantity.” Combined with rhubarb to treat diarrhoea in children. It can be used to treat skin problems in infants and children when combined with dried carbonate of soda.
  • Ointment, Mercurial, Strong (131/110): “Is in very general use for mercurial frictions. It may be employed in almost all cases where mercury is indicated, but it required the direction of a medical man.”
  • Sasparilla (152/131): used to restore the constitution after a long course of mercury.

Diseases Treated with Mercury

General Diseases

  • Jaundice (266/245): mercury should be given in small doses (Savory recommends a five-grain blue pill)
  • Typhus Fever (280/259): mercury with chalk can be given if diarrhoea occurs during the disease
  • Wen, or Goitre (283/262): a camphorated mercurial ointment can be externally applied
  • Scald-head (300/279): alternative like sasparilla, mercurial, &c. are to be used to “assist the cure”

Prescriptions Containing Mercury

Alternatives

  • Alternatives in the form of Pill, Powder, &ct. (310/289): mercury with chalk, “a child from one to three years old may take one of these powders at bedtime.”
  • Alternatives in the form of Pill, Powder, &ct. (310/289): mercury with chalk, “in fevers”

Carminatives

  • Compound Rhubarb Powder (342/321): mercury with chalk, given to children six months old during diarrhoea
Should look up calomel and blue pill because they are popular uses of mercury


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