Observation on the Use and Abuse of Mercury, and on the Precautions Necessary in Its Employment

A. PHILIPS WILSON, M. D.
Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, &c.
Winchester.
Printed and Sold by JAMES ROBBINS.
Sold also by Messrs. CADELL and DAVIES, Strand; MURRAY, Fleet-street; and CROSBY and Co. Stationer’s Court, Ludgate Hill, LONDON.
1805.

The following Observations are addressed to the Public, with a view, on the one hand, to do away certain erroneous prepositions respecting the effects of Mercury, which impede the necessary employment of it; and on the other, to call its attention to the impropriety of an indiscriminate use of this medicine, by which much harm is often done, and the medicine itself brought into disrepute. The best way to effect these purposes seems to be, to make the public acquainted with what is really to be apprehended from an improper use of mercury, and the circumstances in which its bad effects shew themselves; by which every one may be enabled to distinguish these effects from such as proceed from other causes, as well as be warned against a use of this medicine which has become too prevalent.
For many years after its introduction into practice, it was confined to a few diseases. At length it occurred to physicians, that a remedy, which in these proved so efficacious, might produce similar effects in other cases; and such has been the success of the trial, that during the last twenty years mercury has been coming into general use, with a rapidity unequalled in the history of any other medicine. But the more we are assured of its value, the more cautious we ought to be in its employment; both because it is of the greater consequence to prevent any prepossession against it, and because we know that there is no active medicine which can safely be trifled with.
The prejudices which prevail against the use of mercury seem to arise from three sources; the nature of the complaints in which it was first employed; the uneasiness which even its salutary operation, when carried to a certain extent, necessarily occasions; and the bad consequences which sometimes attend an improper use of it. It is surprising, that the first of these causes should operate against its use; yet such is the confusion which naturally creeps into our ideas on subjects in which we are not habitually interested, that the prejudices of not a few originate from this cause. Of such a prejudice it is surely unnecessary to say any thing. The other objections to the use of mercury are of more weight.