Page 27 - Summer2008

ing, very few medical schools and very little ease,” which was believed to be “self-healing.” Calomel was
“standardized care,” meaning that everyone had a According to Coulter, “The mercurial disease
choice of which kind of doctor to engage. Then as itself sometimes got out of hand, however, and often found
now, those therapies with a chemical basis (such remedies were then sought for it, such as general in teething
as calomel) were more costly than herbal or ho- and local bloodletting, saline cathartics, sulphur, powders
meopathic remedies, so those doctors practicing [and] iodine.”
37
“heroic medicine” were mainly concentrated in The doses of calomel at the time were at and given
the cities and towns where people with money least 6-10 grains, the equivalent to 389-650 mg regularly to
and wealth tended to live. of mercury, thousands of times higher than what children.
Rush continued to be vocal in his support the EPA currently recognizes as the “safe” limit
for heroic doses of calomel for “virtually every of mercury ingestion. During the 19th century, Mercury-
disease,” and calomel became the remedy of calomel was given in even higher doses than containing

choice for practitioners of what became known as those prescribed by Rush. One doctor in New powders
“heroic medicine.” John Eberle, whose 1822-23 Orleans was known to have given 60 grains of
33
Treatise of the Materia Medica and Therapeutics calomel per dose (as opposed to Rush’s 10 grains) compounded
inuenced many students and practitioners of to children during the epidemics of yellow fever, with chalk

heroic medicine, said, “of all the articles of the cholera and diphtheria. Other physicians were were given to
materia medica, calomel is undoubtedly the most known to have prescribed 80 grain or even 120
important, whether we consider it in relation to its grain doses or about 3-4 ounces of calomel. children with
purgative operation, or to its more extensive and Moreover, calomel was often found in indigestion

specic inuence upon the animal economy.” 34 teething powders and given regularly to children. or vomiting.
Despite criticism from many of his col- Mercury-containing powders compounded with
leagues, Benjamin Rush’s treatment using chalk were given to children with indigestion or
“enormous” doses of calomel and jalap during vomiting. For respiratory illnesses such as cough,
the Yellow Fever Epidemic in 1793 became the diphtheria and ulcerations in the mouth and throat
standard prescription as a “panacea” for whatever caused by syphilis, physicians exposed patients
ailed: “When a practitioner was puzzled about the to vapors of mercury, known now to be the most
administration of any medicine in a disease, it toxic form of exposure. Calomel was even used
was deemed perfectly proper for him to prescribe to  ght intestinal worms, as it was believed the
a dose of calomel. . . Many physicians believed strong purges would force the worms out of the
that the omission of calomel in desperate cases intestines.
was tantamount to abandoning the patient without Even Abraham Lincoln suffered from the
a nal saving effort. . . Most regularly trained effects of mercury. In 1858 he began to show

physicians used these standardized therapies signs of mental instability—he would become
almost exclusively, even though textbooks on enraged, he was melancholic, and he was getting
therapeutics contained hundreds of alternatives. into  ghts. His “outbursts of rage and bizarre be-
. . Heroic medicine became normative, and those havior,” however, were most likely a result of the
physicians who did not conform were chastised “blue mass pills,” given freely as an antidepres-
by their colleagues.” 35 sant in the 1800s. According to Wayne Bethard,
Rothstein goes on to say, “The average these little blue pills “contained mercury, honey,

graduate (of medical school in the rst half of rose water, licorice root and rose petals; recent
the 19th century) was often completely ignorant research using a typical 19th century recipe for
of medical practice” and as a result they relied the blue pills showed that each pill contains over
upon their “panaceas.” 36 3000 times the amount of maximum daily mer-
Physicians rationalized the use of calomel cury exposure recommended by the EPA.” 38
with two different approaches. First, it cured Fortunately, Mr. Lincoln stopped taking
disease because of its powers as a purgative the pills within days of beginning them, once he
and therefore took away the “materies morbid” realized that they were causing the outbursts.
from the intestines. Second, it had the power to
change a person’s disease into a “mercurial dis-

SUMMER 2008 Wise Traditions 25