The peoples' book : an address to the citizens of Boston, and the people of the United States, on poison, health, disease, vegetable medicine, and manner of curing the sick / by Elias Smith.

  • Smith, Elias, 1769-1846.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The peoples' book : an address to the citizens of Boston, and the people of the United States, on poison, health, disease, vegetable medicine, and manner of curing the sick / by Elias Smith. 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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    There is no doubt in my mind, that many who give poisonous things for medicine are honest, though not consistent. One proof of this honesty is, that some take the same poisons when sick, that they give others; but this I think is not a genera] practice among doctors. We will now give a description of some of the mineral and vegetable poisons used to cure the sick. I. MiiRt;URY, is the first mineral poison we shall mention. There are various names given to this mineral; some we shall mention. The first is Quick- silver, or Liquid Silver, because it resembles liquid silver. The Germans called it quack salbar, and aa it was used privately in private diseases, the doctors who used it were at first called quack salbar doc- tors, and at last quack doctors, or men who gave poison to the sick. This is Dr. Parr's account of it, and all who use quicksilver are quack salber, or quack doctors. Now they fix the name quack on those who are entirely opposed to quackery, or quicksilver for medicine. At the close of the fourteenth century, mercury was used by some as a medicine. Not far from that time it was called mercury, or the god of medicine, as Paul was called mercurius or mercury, because the people of Iconium thought the cod of eloquence had come down in the likeness of men. Dr. Parr, in his Medical Dictionary, page 171, gives the following description of this mineral. The people who work in the quicksilver mines soon die. When first affected, they are seized with tremours, after which, a salivation comes on, their teeth drop out, and pains of the whole body, particularly the bones seize them. Hypocrates does not seem to have been acquainted with it. Aristottle and Dioscorides rank it among the poisons. Galen says it is corrosive. Messue the Arabian, was the first who used it as a medicine, and he only applied