An anti-calomel lecture : being the substance of an address written by appointment of the Medical Association of Meigs County, Ohio : to have been delivered before said society at its annual meeting held in Pomeroy, Ohio, May 20th, 1854, at 10 o'clock, A.M., but was prevented by peculiar circumstances / by William N. Hudson.
- Hudson, William N.
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An anti-calomel lecture : being the substance of an address written by appointment of the Medical Association of Meigs County, Ohio : to have been delivered before said society at its annual meeting held in Pomeroy, Ohio, May 20th, 1854, at 10 o'clock, A.M., but was prevented by peculiar circumstances / by William N. Hudson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![from the time that that apostle of whole- j to the use of two lein tuchs, and a sitz sale murder, Paracelsus, introduced the bath per day. Soon after, an eruption quicksilver and other violent poisons in- appeared over the whole body; first ve- to the materia medica. jsicular, afterward, scaly; also, more In Holland, we are informed, there is boils. The linen was stained with ap- a law, fining heavily, any person who pearances which were supposed to arise administers mercurial medicines, and j from mercury. At the end of six months since that salutary regulation, that the' he gained some color of the cheeks; he fatality of diseases has greatly decreased grew stronger; but, also, new shoous of in that country. And we find, sir, from hair appeared on the head, and which, in statistics and observation, that where two months more, increased that he had the least medicine is used among the a fine head of hair;—he was pursuing sick, as in the Hydropathic establish- treatment, and was evidently in quite a ments, and such hospitals and bettering \ fair way of recovery. houses as are conducted upon Homtepa- I During my stay'at Grafenburg, says thic principles, diseases are less fatal, j Dr. Shew, who also reported the forego- by more than fifty per cent., in propor-1 ing case, I heard frequent mention of tion to the numbers admitted and dis- j the stains of mercury, and iodine, ap- eases treated, than in those institutions peanng in the lein tuchs, either of a blue where heavy medication is the practice, or reddish color; but Preisnitz assured and especially when mercurial medicines my friend, Dr. Buxton, that he had seen are almost considered as the sine quo j mercurial gobules issue at the ends of non. j the fingers, after a continued course of And, now, Mr. President, though I the water-cure, in patients who had made have made but a beginning, of the ex- j great employment of mercury, either in- tracts of different authors which I had ternally, or externally, or both; notwith- marked for quoting; I suppose I have s standing that they had desisted from well nigh exhausted your patience, and the use of the medicine for several that of the audience; and will close j years. I cannot doubt the veracity of these extracts, by stating a few cases, I Preisnitz, and Lebig, with whom I dis- from different water-cure works, show- j cussed the subject, had no doubt of such ing the tenacity of mercurials to (he an- a fact, and offered as his explanation, tIBal system, as well as the power of that mercury combines with animal mat- purc water, scientifically applied in erad- i ter, and may remain so combined, for icating it, and other diseasing matter, an indefinite time; and that the quick from the animal economy. change of matter, which belongs to the A gentleman, aged 33, having used water-cure treatment, would tend to the mercury with great freedom, fell into a separation of the mercury, which might state of great debility and nervousness, appear either in the globular or other and gradually became almost bald, and form. wasdescribed to look more like a corpse For, Libig says, By means of the ihan a living person. Hisfirst treatment water-cure treatment, a change of mat- was a sitz bath, two lein tuchs, followed ter is effected, in a greater degree in six by a shallow tepid bath, and free drink- ) weeks, than would happen, in the ordi- ing of water; afterward he sweated in nary course of nature, in three years. the blanket, and used the plunging bath Says Shew again, I have witnessed every other day; douching, also, on most ] examples of the latent stag of mercury days; but omiting the lein tuchs, and not j in the system, and shall cite the follow- using any douche on the day of the sweat- ing:—I prescribed to a poor woman, af- ing blanket. He took as much exercise flicted with rheumatism of the wrist joint, on the mountains as his strength would threatening anchylosis, which she had allow. Soon after his arrival, the few rubbed, at occasional intervals, with hairs on his head, which he brought with mercury, from January to the end of him disappeared, and the baldness was May. No mercury was taken internally; complete. Boils formed, and suppurated none used externally after May; in No- freely, when the treatment was reduced ' vember following, she was seized with](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21131053_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
