Page 19 - Summer2008

Beautiful Black Poison

The History of Calomel as Medicine

in America

By Jennifer Schmid, Naturopath

ew drugs present greater hazards as well as greater

potential benets than ever before—for they are

Nwidely used, they are often very potent, and they

are promoted by aggressive sales campaigns that may
tend to overstate their merits and fail to indicate the risks

involved in their use. . . There is no way of measuring
the needless suffering, the money innocently squandered,

and the protraction of illnesses resulting from the use of
such ineffective drugs. John F. Kennedy, in his

Consumers’ Protection Message of March 15, 1962 1

T he more things change, the more they stay the

French Proverb
same.

T he doctor comes with free good will, but ne’er for-

gets his calomel. American folk saying, mid 1800s
2

SUMMER 2008 Wise Traditions 17