What do Howard Hughes, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, and Oscar Wilde have in common?Below are a few interesting bits of information that Laura came across in her research. This brings to light just how long mercury has been used in "medicine" and how long it has been used to poison people deliberately. It seems to me that those two activities (medicine and murder) should not share the same ointment.The Syphilis ConnectionEach is suspected of suffering from the infamous venereal disease syphilis. They all had some of the symptoms, most often insanity, or documentation of treatment,
such as mercury in the blood, and all led particularly “active” lifestyles.
More:
http://www.inklingmagazine.com/articles/the-funny-syphilis/Ivan The TerribleIVAN the Terrible's mother and wife were poisoned with mercury, according to scientists who claim to have solved two 500-year-old murder mysteries.
Forensic science experts have discovered that the remains of Yelena Glinskaya and Anastasia Romanovna, the mother and the wife of the first Russian tsar, contain suspiciously high concentrations of mercury.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-Ivan-the-Terribles-mother-and-wife.html...impulsive; given to rages, probably had episodic outbreaks of mental disorder.Ivan IV Vasilyevich (The Grand Prince Ivan having achieved much overseeing numerous changes in the transition from a mere local medieval nation state to a small empireEmpire
What exactly constitutes an Empire is a topic of intense debate within the scholarly community....
and emerging regional powerRegional power
A regional power is a term used in the field of international relations to describe a state with power and influence that al...
, became acknowledged as the first TsarTsar
Tsar , occasionally spelled Czar or Tzar and sometimes Csar or Zar in English, is a Slavonic term des...
of a new more powerful nation, became "Tsar of All Russia" from 1547.
Ivan was strong minded, devout, and impulsive; given to rages, and according to the suspicions of some, probably had episodic outbreaks of mental disorder. One notable outburst resulted in the death of his groomed and chosen heir – Ivan Ivanovich – resulting in the passing of the Tsardom to a less than ideal younger son – the mentally retarded Feodor I of RussiaFeodor I of Russia Overview
Feodor I Ivanovich was the last Rurikid Tsar of Russia, son of Ivan the Terrible and Anastasia Romanovna.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Ivan_IV_of_Russia---
An interesting excerpt...
Was Ivan The Terrible Poisoned by Mercury?---
The Department of Health of the state of New York, advises in its pamphlet on The Modern Treatment of Syphilis, Gonorrhea and Chancroid: "if salivation occurs, mercurial therapy should be temporarily discontinued to be renewed in smaller dosage after the salivation clears up. For the salivation, frequent mouth washes with a saturated aqueous solution of potassium chlorate are recommended. For soft, spongy gums, tincture of myrrh may be painted on locally two or three times a day."THE BEGINNING OF QUACKERY Quack is from the German word for mercury or quicksilver — quacksalber. The term was applied to Paracelsus and his followers because of their extensive use of this metal. Originally the word quack was applied to those who poisoned their patients with mercury. Now it is falsely applied to all who refuse to poison their patients. Every intelligent reader will readily recognize to whom the term really belongs.
Paracelsus was not the first to use mercury in "syphilis", but he was the first to proclaim it a specific and the only specific for "the disease" (1636). To Jacob Carpensic belongs the doubtful honor of having been the first to use mercury in "syphilis." This was in the year 1502 and de Kruif tells us that his use of it "was so successful that he presently became rich thereby." The Arabians had used mercurial ointment in the treatment of scabies (itch) and because "syphilis" produced sores somewhat like scabies, the ungentum Saracenicun was used in "syphilis."
Fracastorius (1630) advised infusions of mint, hops, thyme, and guaiac. He insisted on sweating, saying: "when one perspires, the rottenness leaves the body with the drops of sweat." He also advised purging and bleeding, but above all, he praised mercuric inunctions, which he pushed up to the point of salivation. In 1648 Femel sustained the claim of Paracelsus that mercury is a specific and the only specific for "syphilis."
Following Carpensic, Fracastorius, Paracelsus and Fernel, mercuric inunctions were employed to such an extent that the gums of "the patients softened and their teeth fell out." Palm thus describes this early treatment: "They filled their patients' stomachs with mercury pills; painted and greased them with mercury salves, and as an afterthought baked them in ovens until one early author observed that 'the stench of frying fat was through the air.'"
Parran says: "Unfortunately, no one knew of the great risk attached to the continued use of mercury. The physician, of his nature proceeded cautiously. The quacks, however, promising quicker results gave such huge doses that as many patients succumbed to the drug as to the disease. *** This mercurialization which, at its best, was almost as dangerous to the patient as the disease, when supplemented by the bleeding, the purging, and the sweating that characterized the. treatment of the time, constitutes a picture of therapeutics at its ebb tide of usefulness. The doctors being intimidated by what they saw, either gave up the use of mercury entirely or used it in amounts insufficient to control the disease."
He is not entirely honest about what he calls the "misuse of mercury." It was the people and not the doctors who rebelled against the mercury treatment. More honest, de Kruif says, "because there was no standardized dosage, many patients were poisoned, and actually killed, by doctors who were too eager to cure them. This caused the popularity of mercury to wax and wane. In the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries German candidates for the doctor's degree were made to take an oath that they would under no conditions prescribe mercury for their patients. Doctors who did so were denounced as 'poison mixers and murderers.'"
Such practices constituted therapeutics, not at its "ebb tide of usefulness," but at its high tide of destructiveness. No doubt many patients died after years of suffering from slow mercurial poisoning. Many were bled to death, while many more died of heat stroke. Others died of all three. Some were too tough to kill.
Parran says, "so great were the agonies that attended overuse of mercury that guaiacum, china root, sarsaparilla, sassafrass, and other similar preparations, each in turn, were hailed as cure-alls. Sweating in its early vogue, may be considered as the forerunner of the fever-machine therapy."
Then, during the last half of the nineteenth century Fournier in Paris and Hutchinson in London, worked out the precise method of administering mercury to avoid salivation and it resumed its place as a specific for "syphilis." Iodides were added to the treatment as a "useful auxiliary to clean up the late lesions."
"Syphilis" assumed its present protean forms when it began to be treated with mercury. Its pathology was changed over night and it rapidly became the nightmare of the profession and the haunt of the public. Unfortunately for the "civilized" portions of the race, mercury in some of its forms has been used lavishly in many other diseases. There is hardly a disease in the nosology for which mercury in some form has not been used. It is for this reason that so many hundreds of people who give no history of ever having had so-called "syphilis" often develop diseases that are said to belong to the tertiary stages of "syphilis." Of course, there are other drugs besides mercury that can and do cause these troubles, as will be shown later.
Taken in any of its forms mercury is followed by erythemia, painful nodosities, cellulitis, abscesses, and sloughing. Any or all of these may be present. Mercurial poisoning is accompanied by a peculiar metalic taste in the mouth, a profuse tenacious saliva, sensitive teeth, inflammed gums, which are, at first, light in color but later become red and spongy. If sufficient mercury is given the teeth become loose and fall out. The tongue and parotoid glands swell, while ulcers form on the mucous surfaces of the mouth and throat. The condition of the mouth and throat is duplicated in the mucous lining of the stomach and bowels. The victim becomes weak, depressed, nervous, loses his appetite, has headache, indigestion, diarrhea, gastro-intestinal catarrh and skin eruptions. Mercury may cause general mental and physical degeneracy and death. It all depends on the amount given and the effectiveness of the organism in eliminating it.
Bastedo, a standard medical author, says: "Mercuric chloride has a special destructive action upon the epithelium of the convulted tubules; in sub-acute and chronic poisoning there may be a diffused nephritis." Again, "the mildest form of poisoning has for its prominent feature 'mercurial stomatitis,' or as it is commonly called, 'salivation.' It is much more readily produced in nephritis than when the kidneys are unimpaired. *** The profuse salivation may go on to the inflammation of the salivary glands, and to necrosis of parts of the mouth and jaws; in addition the patient feels ill and there may be headache, lassitude, muscular weakness, and diarrhea, occasionally there is constipation."
There was a time, not over fifty years ago, when a physician did not think he had done anything if he had not salivated his patient. Now signs of salivation are watched for and upon their appearance drugging is stopped for a short time and then resumed. The Department of Health of the state of New York, advises in its pamphlet on The Modern Treatment of Syphilis, Gonorrhea and Chancroid: "if salivation occurs, mercurial therapy should be temporarily discontinued to be renewed in smaller dosage after the salivation clears up. For the salivation, frequent mouth washes with a saturated aqueous solution of potassium chlorate are recommended. For soft, spongy gums, tincture of myrrh may be painted on locally two or three times a day."
Continued:
SYPHILIS: Is it a Mischievous Myth or a Malignant Monster
