Page 32 - Summer2008

“Harper’s Monthly stated in 1856 that the Much of the dental industry still uses
youth of this country were ‘a pale, pasty-faced, dental amalgams and chastises those dentists
narrow-chested, spinkle-shanked, dwarfed race.’ who speak out publicly against them. Some
In 1856 the War Department published the results dentists opposing amalgams lost their licenses
of its examination of recruits during the Mexican in the process, in the same way as those physi-
War: American volunteers weighed less than cians who spoke out against calomel back in
European or English recruits, and there were the 19th century. Parents who protest the use of
nearly twice as many rejections of Americans thimerosal in vaccines are considered paranoid

for being ‘too slender, and not sufciently robust’ by the manufacturers of vaccines as well as by
or for ‘malformed and contracted chests.’ Worst government of cials, even as the same of cials
off, however, were the women. Thomas Went- formally urge vaccine manufacturers to remove
worth Higginson wrote in 1861: ‘In this country thimerosal from the vaccines.
it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that every
man grows to maturity surrounded by a circle GENERATION AFTER GENERATION

of invalid relatives, that he later nds himself With the use of calomel continuing on
the husband of an invalid wife and the parent well into the twentieth century, in conjunction
of invalid daughters, and that he comes at last with amalgam  llings, heavy metal vaccines,
to regard invalidism. . . the normal condition of and industrial practices spewing mercury into
that sex—as if Almighty God did not know how the environment, is it any wonder that we are
to create a woman.’ a toxic society with epidemic rates of autism,
“Calomel was well known to cause de- cancer, ADD, ADHD and chronic illness? Could
terioration of the teeth, and Higginson states: it be that Americans have never really had a
‘Perhaps the most universal symptom of this break from all that mercury and that for most
physical decay was the condition of America’s of us, the effects of mercury have literally been
teeth; one seldom talked to a dentist, it was af- passed down from generation to generation, from

rmed, who did not despair of the republic.’ It mother to child, accumulating to the breaking
is probably true that the toothlessness of many point?
Americans was due to the doses of calomel they How have we come to the point where one
received from infancy, and this medication was in 94 boys in America has received the diagnosis
doubtless responsible also for many of the other of autism? Science shows that mercury crosses
ills described.’” 62 the placental barrier between mother and fetus,
So how was it that calomel ultimately fell which is why pregnant women are cautioned

out of favor as a cure-all medicine? Did physi- against eating certain types of sh (although they

cians nally “see the light” regarding the painful are not counseled against getting  u vaccines or
and disguring effects of calomel usage, or was amalgam  llings).

there another reason? On top of all of this, most Americans eat
Certainly antibiotics, diagnostic tech- the Standard American Diet (SAD) and depend
niques, advances in pathology, a better under- largely on processed, rened, empty foods that

standing of human physiology, and higher prots impair their ability to eliminate mercury from
from synthetic drugs or extracts have all played a their tissues. This means that Americans are
64
role in the demise of calomel as a medicine. The parenting children who not only come into the
Mercury in its reality is that thousands of people are still injured world with generations of mercury accumulation
many forms or killed every year from pharmaceutical prepa- in their tissues, but who then, with their cereals
is but one rations, according to industry-sponsored studies and baby formulas and pasteurized milk from
published in both the Journal of the American antibiotic-laden feedlot cows, have no way of
debilitating Medical Association and the New England ridding their bodies of the heavy metal.
and lethal Journal of Medicine. There are simply newer, Mercury in its many forms is but one
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toxin in our more expensive drugs that have taken the place debilitating and lethal toxin in our environ-
of calomel, drugs which manifest their effects in ment. One hopes that its use in industry will be
environment. more subtle ways than those of calomel. restricted and even banned in the years to come
30 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2008