Page 63 - Spring2018

Reading Between the Lines

By Merinda Teller

Mercury’s Poisonous Persistence in the Medical Armamentarium

Mercury, science and medicine have a long, been some discerning individuals who have There have
intertwined history, dating back to ancient viewed the medicinal use of mercury as the
times. Historians believe that Arab physicians hallmark of unscrupulous healers. Christian always been
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were using mercury compounds as long ago descriptions of Jesus “the Good Physician” con- some
as the sixth century BC. The first Emperor of trast with discussions of the bad physicians of discerning
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unified China, Qin Shi Huang (born 259 BC), his time who “traded on complex, intellectually
reportedly consumed cinnabar (the vermilion- prestigious, costly and dangerous treatments to individuals
colored mercury ore) in the vain belief that it amass great wealth for themselves.” who have
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would serve as an elixir of immortality. Jesus’s approximate contemporary, Pliny viewed the
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Later, in the sixth and seventh centuries the Elder, chastised greedy physicians for profit-
AD, Ayurvedic practitioners in India went to ing from ineffective mercury-containing “oint- medicinal
elaborate lengths to prepare a “red sulfide of ment cures.” Unfortunately, as one mercury use of
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mercury,” purifying the element and combin- historian points out, the use of such a powerful mercury
ing it with herbs to treat a variety of ailments. substance often dazzled patients, and “when
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This ongoing branch of Ayurvedic “medical poisoning symptoms appeared, they could as the
alchemy” (known as Rasa Shastra) is guided always be blamed on worsening of the original hallmark of
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by the belief that “nothing is good for everybody disease.” unscrupulous
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and everything is good for somebody.” Other In the 1700s, self-promoting itinerant sur-
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reported applications of mercury in early India geon John Taylor, described as a “charlatan” by healers.
and China included its use as an aphrodisiac some of his contemporaries and a flamboyant
and contraceptive. 7 “poster child for 18th century quackery” by
Although ancient civilizations appear to modern observers, performed eye surgeries on
have been fascinated with mercury as a medici- both Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and
nal, alchemical, ceremonial and coloring agent, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759). Both
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awareness of mercury’s toxicity also arose early musicians died from ostensible strokes some
on. Thus, the Romans used prisoners, slaves time after undergoing their eye operations. His-
and other “undesirables” to mine mercury, torians have pointed out that Taylor used copious
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not caring that the miners “would soon die a amounts of mercury as an antiseptic during
crazed and anguished death.” Animal experi- the operations and administered postoperative
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ments on mercury toxicity began in the ninth laxatives that likely also contained mercury. 13
century, and Avicenna, in the eleventh century, Mercury since has been shown to have serious
suggested that it would be wise to limit mercury vascular effects and to play a role in stroke. 15
to topical uses. Cautions about mercury toxicity In the nineteenth century, German physi-
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also cropped up in fairy tales. In the nineteenth- cian Adolf Kussmaul traced the word “quack”
century Irish folk tale The Pudding Bewitched, to the Dutch word quacksalver used to describe
a fairy-man puts “half a pound of quicksilver” individuals hawking topical mercury (“quicksil-
into a pudding, prompting a “dancing mania” ver”) products. Meanwhile, on the American
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in everyone who eats the pudding. 10 continent, the use in the 1800s of mercury “as a
universal medicine for almost any disease made
CHARLATANS AND QUACKS large parts of the [U.S.] population turn their
Throughout the ages, there have always backs on established medicine.” 12

SPRING 2018 Wise Traditions 61