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Blue mass (also known as blue pill or pilula hydrargyri) was the name of a mercury-based medical treatment for syphilis common from the 17th to the 19th centuries. The oldest formula is ascribed to one Barbarossa, in a letter to Francis I of France. [1]
Blue mass was used as a specific treatment for syphilis from at least the late 17th century to the early 18th. [2] Blue mass was recommended as a remedy for such widely varied complaints as tuberculosis, constipation, toothache, parasitic infestations, and the pains of childbirth.
The Edinburgh New Dispensatory (1789) instructs the making as follows: "Pilula ex Hydrargyro [London] (Quicksilver-pills). Take of Purified quicksilver, Extract of liquorice, having the consistence of honey, of each two drams, Liquorice, finally powdered, one dram. Rub the quicksilver with the extract of liquorice until the globules disappear; then, add the liquorice-powder, mix them together." [3]
A combination of blue mass and a mixture called the common black draught was a standard cure for constipation in early 19th century England and elsewhere. It was particularly valued on ships of the Royal Navy, where sailors and officers were constrained to eat rock-hard salted beef and pork, old stale biscuits (hardtack), and very little fruit, fiber, or other fresh food once they were at sea for an extended period.
It was a magistral preparation, compounded by pharmacists themselves based on their own recipes or on one of several widespread recipes. It was sold in the form of blue or gray pills, or syrup. Its name probably derives from the use of blue dye or blue chalk (used as a buffer) in some formulations.
The ingredients of blue mass varied, as each pharmacist prepared it himself, but they all included mercury in elemental or compound form (often as mercury chloride, also known as calomel). One recipe of the period for blue mass syrup included: [4]
Blue pills were produced by substituting milk sugar and rose oil for the glycerol and rose honey. Pills contained one grain (64.8 milligrams) of mercury.
Mercury is now known to be toxic, and ingestion of mercury leads to mercury poisoning, a form of heavy-metal poisoning. While mercury is still used in compound form in some types of medicines although in compounds or levels safe for human consumption; and for other purposes, blue mass contained excessive amounts of the metal: a typical daily dose of two or three blue mass pills represented ingestion of more than one hundred times the daily limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States today.
For several years before his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln is known to have taken blue-mass pills for treatment of chronic melancholia. [5] It's been reported that during this time, Lincoln was known to have experienced neurological symptoms, including insomnia, tremor and rage attacks, which suggests he may have been suffering from mercury poisoning. However, a few months after his inauguration, Lincoln reportedly stopped taking the medication because he perceived the pills made him "cross". [5]
In 2001, a study led by renowned public-health investigator Norbert Hirschhorn recreated a typical formulation, [6] concluding that the quantity of blue mass that Lincoln likely took would have delivered "a daily dose of mercury exceeding the current Environmental Protection Agency safety standard by nearly 9000 times," [5] which may have adversely affected his health.
In chemistry, cyanide is a chemical compound that contains a C≡N functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a German Swedish pharmaceutical chemist.
A tablet is a pharmaceutical oral dosage form or solid unit dosage form. Tablets may be defined as the solid unit dosage form of medication with suitable excipients. It comprises a mixture of active substances and excipients, usually in powder form, that are pressed or compacted into a solid dose. The main advantages of tablets are that they ensure a consistent dose of medicine that is easy to consume.
Ergot or ergot fungi refers to a group of fungi of the genus Claviceps.
Ergotism is the effect of long-term ergot poisoning, traditionally due to the ingestion of the alkaloids produced by the Claviceps purpurea fungus—from the Latin clava "club" or clavus "nail" and -ceps for "head", i.e. the purple club-headed fungus—that infects rye and other cereals, and more recently by the action of a number of ergoline-based drugs. It is also known as ergotoxicosis, ergot poisoning, and Saint Anthony's fire.
Mercury poisoning is a type of metal poisoning due to exposure to mercury. Symptoms depend upon the type, dose, method, and duration of exposure. They may include muscle weakness, poor coordination, numbness in the hands and feet, skin rashes, anxiety, memory problems, trouble speaking, trouble hearing, or trouble seeing. High-level exposure to methylmercury is known as Minamata disease. Methylmercury exposure in children may result in acrodynia in which the skin becomes pink and peels. Long-term complications may include kidney problems and decreased intelligence. The effects of long-term low-dose exposure to methylmercury are unclear.
Flying ointment is a hallucinogenic ointment said to have been used by witches in the practice of European witchcraft from at least as far back as the Early Modern period, when detailed recipes for such preparations were first recorded and when their usage spread to colonial North America.
Potassium iodide is a chemical compound, medication, and dietary supplement. It is a medication used for treating hyperthyroidism, in radiation emergencies, and for protecting the thyroid gland when certain types of radiopharmaceuticals are used. In the third world it is also used for treating skin sporotrichosis and phycomycosis. It is a supplement used by people with low dietary intake of iodine. It is administered orally.
Calomel is a mercury chloride mineral with formula Hg2Cl2 (see mercury(I) chloride). It was used as a medicine from the 16th to early 20th century, despite frequently causing mercury poisoning in patients.
Chinese alchemy is a historical Chinese approach to alchemy, a pseudoscience. According to original texts such as the Cantong qi, the body is understood as the focus of cosmological processes summarized in the five agents of change, or Wuxing, the observation and cultivation of which leads the practitioner into alignment and harmony with the Tao. Therefore, the traditional view in China is that alchemy focuses mainly on longevity and the purification of one's spirit, mind and body, providing, health, longevity and wisdom, through the practice of Qigong and wuxingheqidao. The consumption and use of various concoctions known as alchemical medicines or elixirs, each of which having different purposes but largely were concerned with immortality.
Contrayerva, or contrajerva, is the medicinal rhizome of various tropical Central American and South American species of Dorstenia in the family Moraceae, mainly Dorstenia contrajerva and the closely related Dorstenia drakena but also Dorstenia brasiliensis. The word contrayerva means “counter herb” in Spanish. It was given this name since a 16th-century description claimed that the leaves of a herb were used by South American Indians to counter the deadly poisonous effect of the same herb when used as an arrow poison. Seventeenth century herbalists and botanists identified this herb as the aromatic root that had been brought from Peru to England by Francis Drake, and claimed that it was an antidote against all kinds of poison. By the late 18th century contrayerva had lost its reputation as an antidote, but it continued to be listed in European and American pharmacopoeias and herbals until the 1920s as a gentle stimulant, tonic and diaphoretic. It is still used in folk medicine in Central and South America.
Codeine is an opiate and prodrug of morphine mainly used to treat pain, coughing, and diarrhea. It is also commonly used as a recreational drug. It is found naturally in the sap of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. It is typically used to treat mild to moderate degrees of pain. Greater benefit may occur when combined with paracetamol (acetaminophen) or a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) such as aspirin or ibuprofen. Evidence does not support its use for acute cough suppression in children. In Europe, it is not recommended as a cough medicine in those under 12 years of age. It is generally taken by mouth. It typically starts working after half an hour, with maximum effect at two hours. Its effects last for about four to six hours. Codeine exhibits abuse potential similar to other opioid medications, including a risk of habituation and overdose.
Cyanide poisoning is poisoning that results from exposure to any of a number of forms of cyanide. Early symptoms include headache, dizziness, fast heart rate, shortness of breath, and vomiting. This phase may then be followed by seizures, slow heart rate, low blood pressure, loss of consciousness, and cardiac arrest. Onset of symptoms usually occurs within a few minutes. Some survivors have long-term neurological problems.
Mercury is a chemical element; it has symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver and was formerly named hydrargyrum from the Greek words hydor'water' and argyros'silver', from which its chemical symbol is derived. A heavy, silvery d-block element, mercury is the only metallic element that is known to be liquid at standard temperature and pressure; the only other element that is liquid under these conditions is the halogen bromine, though metals such as caesium, gallium, and rubidium melt just above room temperature.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chocolate:
Abraham Lincoln's health has been the subject of both contemporaneous commentary and subsequent hypotheses by historians and scholars. Until middle age, his health was fairly good for the time. He contracted malaria in 1830 and 1835; the latter was the worse of the two cases. He contracted smallpox in 1863 during an 1863 to 1864 epidemic in Washington, D.C.
Norbert Hirschhorn is an Austrian-born American public health physician. He was one of the inventors and developers of the life-saving method called oral rehydration therapy for adults and children suffering fluid loss from cholera and other infectious diarrheal illnesses. It is estimated that his work has saved around 50 million people suffering from dehydration.
In Chinese alchemy, elixir poisoning refers to the toxic effects from elixirs of immortality that contained metals and minerals such as mercury and arsenic. The official Twenty-Four Histories record numerous Chinese emperors, nobles, and officials who died from taking elixirs to prolong their lifespans. The first emperor to die from elixir poisoning was likely Qin Shi Huang and the last was the Yongzheng Emperor. Despite common knowledge that immortality potions could be deadly, fangshi and Daoist alchemists continued the elixir-making practice for two millennia.
Magnesium sulfate as a medication is used to treat and prevent low blood magnesium and seizures in women with eclampsia. It is also used in the treatment of torsades de pointes, severe asthma exacerbations, constipation, and barium poisoning. It is given by injection into a vein or muscle as well as by mouth. As epsom salts, it is also used for mineral baths.