MERCU′′RIAL DISEASE′. Syn. Morbus mercurialis, Hydrargyriasis, L. This results from the injudicious or excessive use of mercury, or exposure to the fumes of this metal. The common and leading symptoms are a disagreeable coppery taste; excessive salivation; sponginess, tumefaction, and ulceration of the gums; swollen tongue; loosening of the teeth; exfoliation of the jaws; remarkably offensive breath; debility; emaciation; ending (when not arrested) in death from exhaustion. Fever, cachexia, violent purging and griping, a species of eczema (ECZEMA MERCURIALE, LEPRA MERCURIALIS), and other forms of skin disease, are also phases of the same affection, the first of which occasionally proves fatal under the influence of sudden and violent physical exertion.
The treatment, in ordinary cases, may consist in free exposure to the open air, avoiding either heat or cold; the administration of saline aperients, as Epsom salts, phosphate of soda, &c.; the free use of lemon juice and water as a common drink; with weak gargles or washes of chloride of soda or chloride of lime to the gums, mouth, and throat. Severe cases often resist every variety of treatment, and instances are recorded in the medical journals in which the use of even small doses of mercurials,
administered by the faculty, have, owing to the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the patients, been followed by the most horrible sufferings, terminating in death.
MER′CURY. Hg. Syn. Quicksilver, Hydrargyrum (B. P., Ph. L. E. and D.); Mercure, Vif argent, Fr.; Quecksilber, Ger. A remarkable metal, which has been known from a very early period. The Romans employed it as a medicine externally, as did the Arabs; but the Hindoos were probably the first to prescribe it internally.
Sources. The most important are the mines of Idria, in Carniola; Almaden, in New Castile; and New Almaden, in California, where it exists combined with sulphur, under the form of cinnabar. From this ore the pure metal is obtained by distilling it with lime or iron filings, in iron retorts, by which the sulphur it contains is seized and retained, while the mercury rises in the state of vapour, and is condensed in suitable receivers. Quicksilver is commonly imported in cylindrical iron bottles; containing 1⁄2 cwt. to 1 cwt. each. It is also imported in small quantities from China, contained in bamboo bottles holding about 20 lbs. each.
Prep. Mercury, as imported, is usually sufficiently pure for medicinal purposes without any further preparation. Mere mechanical impurities, as floating dust, dirt, &c., may be got rid of by squeezing the metal through chamois leather or flannel, or by filtering it through a small hole in the apex of an inverted cone of paper. It can be further cleaned by shaking well with a little strong nitric acid, washing with distilled water, and drying by blotting paper, or filtering through warm chamois leather.
Prop., &c. Mercury, at all common temperatures, is a heavy liquid, possessing a nearly silver-white colour, and a brilliant metallic lustre; solidifies (freezes) at -40° Fahr., and is then ductile, malleable, and tenacious; boils at 662° Fahr., and escapes in colourless transparent vapour, of great density; it also volatilises slowly at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere. The presence of minute quantities of lead and zinc greatly retard its evaporation at its boiling heat. It unites with oxygen, chlorine, iodine, &c., forming numerous compounds. With the metals it unites to form AMALGAMS. The only acids which act directly on metallic mercury are the sulphuric and nitric, but for this purpose the former must be heated and concentrated. Nitric acid, however, even when dilute and in the cold, dissolves it freely. Pure mercury is unalterable in the air at ordinary temperatures. Sp. gr. 13·59 at 60° Fahr.; about 14· when in the solid state.
Uses, &c. Mercury is applied to various purposes in the arts; as the amalgamation of gold and silver, ‘wash gilding,’ the silvering of looking-glasses, the manufacture of barometers and thermometers, and the preparation
of several very valuable medicines. In its metallic state it appears to be inert when swallowed, unless it meets with much acidity in the alimentary canal, or is in a state of minute division; its compounds are, however, all of them more or less poisonous.
Mercury has been employed in one or other of its forms in almost all diseases; but each of its numerous preparations is supposed to have some peculiarity of action of its own, combined with that common to all the compounds of this metal. The mercurials form, indeed, one of the most important classes of the materia medica.