Page 22 - Summer2008

Paracelsus amounts of mercury if laxation does not occur ments, oxygen had not yet been discovered, and

was aware of after taking calomel, a saline laxative should be no one knew how the body produced blood. Para-
celsus not only made many chemical remedies
taken the following day.” Whether or not the
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the potential calomel is eliminated is a matter of dispute. Of more popular, but he is also credited with having
to harm note is the fact that both internal and external use invented several, including calomel. He believed
patients with of calomel was known to cause skin reactions and that matter was solely composed of mercury,
fever, common symptoms after the administration
sulphur and salt. “Basically there are only three
too much of vaccines containing thimerosal. kinds of medicine and three kinds of illnesses…
mercury, and each [doctor] will remember to give mercury to
in his many THE DEVELOPMENT OF CALOMEL the mercurial diseases, salt to the saline diseases,
AS A MEDICINAL SUBSTANCE
sulphur to suphuric diseases, to each illness that
publications Paracelsus, born in Switzerland with the which is appropriate and tting.”

8
he rebuked name Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim If disease is thus manifested from an imbal-

his fellow (1493-1541), was one of the rst physicians to ance of mercury within, for example, one must
administer mercury in order to cure the disease.
incorporate chemistry and pharmacy into his
physicians for therapies. A some- Compounds were for-
their free use what controversial mulated based on the

of calomel gure in the history of state and origin of the
medicine, Paracelsus
disease.
and other believed in the spiri- Paracelsus was one
mercurial tual nature of human- of the rst physician-

compounds. ity and in the unity chemists to suggest the
between material and
use of mercury applied
spiritual. Unlike most externally to the lesions
modern physicians, of syphilis. Yet he was
he felt that all rem- aware of the potential
edies, no matter how to harm patients with
chemical in nature, too much mercury, and
also had a spiritual in his many publica-
component. He ad- tions he rebuked his
hered to the “Doctrine fellow physicians for
of Similars” (the idea their free use of calo-
that like cures like) mel and other mercu-
but in a different way rial compounds. He
from Hippocrates or “urged physicians to
homeopathic physi- reduce their doses, as
cians, as he felt that they were killing pa-
one must use “poi- tients with mercury
sonous” remedies in more quickly than even
order to expel disease, the syphilis could do
which come out of it.”
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imbalance and poison By contrast, many
within. “It is possible European physicians
to make good out of evil,” he wrote. Mercury and chemists were loath to prescribe metallic
7
or calomel, therefore, would be given as a pur- preparations such as calomel because of the toxic
gative—driving out disease and that which is side effects. In France, for instance, prescribing
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impure. external or internal mercury or antimony-based
When Paracelsus began experimenting chemicals was grounds for dismissal from the
with chemistry and heavy metals, no one knew Academy of Medicine. Fear of reprisal was not
much about them; there was no Table of Ele- enough to stop the use of calomel, however. Med-
20 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2008