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course called Science and Popular Culture in Victorian Society. This is my rough draft.
Rob Nemes
Professor ------
Assignment #3
11/19/2002
A Mercurial Cure
Throughout the Victorian age, the standard cure for syphilis was mercury. This disease was a scourge of the people of the age. Many contracted it and many suffered because of it. At the time, the only known manner of curing the disease was to apply mercury, either by injection into the upper thigh, inunction of the afflicted area, orally, or inhaled by heating the mercury to produce fumes. Unfortunately for the syphilitic, the cure could be as horrifying as the disease. In many cases, the cure was more excruciating. Despite the well documented and debilitating effects of exposure to mercury, it continued to be the doctor-preferred method of treating the disease well into the 20th century.
The doctors and their patients both knew of the destructive tendencies of the metal. However, the doctors continued to ignore the toxicity of the cure. In 1895, James Hyde and Frank Montgomery wrote this concerning the use of mercury;
"In the face of vast opposition, and despite the fact that a large number of lesions of syphilis have been attributed where they do not belong-to the assumed toxic effect of the metal which is of chief value in securing its relief-mercury to-day stands pre-eminent throughout the civilized world among drugs esteemed efficient for the relief of the symptoms and for the radical cure of the disease."(1)
These same authors went on to write three pages about the horrors of “mercurial disease” in syphilis patients.(2) These pages were written within the same chapter as the phrase “assumed toxic effect of the metal.” The word assumed indicated some sort ambiguity about the medical effects of mercury. They also wrote about the possibility of death when the mercury was administered via hypodermic injection, saying about this method, “It has often proved dangerous, and in a few instances fatal; it is liable to produce furuncles, nodes, abscesses, sloughing and other lesions at the sight of injection.”(3) Nor were these the only scholars to think in this manner. Indeed, most doctors believed that mercury was the only method of treating syphilis. D’arcy Power and J. Keogh Murphy discussed their belief that mercury was the most potent “specific” drug known at the time and wrote, “This position has been attained in the face of extraordinary vicissitudes, will, I believe, always be maintained, owing to its powerful action on the disease.”(4) The doctors of the Victorian era could not believe that the drug, which they administered without hesitation, might actually do more harm than good.
The patients, however, had their own misgivings about the treatment. In Volume II of the series System of Syphilis, the authors wrote of mercury, “To this day it is a drug hated and detested by the general public, as being the cause of ulceration, gangrene, severe bone lesions, paralysis, and-of course-alopecia.” Further down the page, they described some of the symptoms of mercury usage, with the symptoms being; “deep ulcerations, local gangrene, necrosis of the jaw, and loss of teeth.”(5) They continued to describe syphilitic people avoiding doctors because of their fear of mercury. In Volume VI of the same series, the authors wrote about a strategy doctors were to employ when cajoling a soldier into submitting to the treatment.(6) Obviously, the general populace did not believe in the curative power of the metal, and for good reason. However, most doctors did trust in that power, despite evidence that clearly suggested the toxicity of mercury.
In 1801, long before A System of Syphilis was compiled, University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate, James Tongue, recorded accounts of several experiments related to the medicinal use of mercury. In these experiments, the toxic nature of the metal was clearly portrayed. Tongue wrote of a Parisian man,
" was salivated by the fumes of mercury to such a degree that his legs and thighs were very much swelled, and there came upon them a great many blisters, which discharged an abundance of thick ferrous water, which was kept in pots. After a certain time there was deposited in them globules of mercury."(7)
He penned this account of another experiment;
"One scruple(8) of calomel(9) with three drachms(10) of pump water were injected into the jugular veins of a puppy. In eleven minutes after it was introduced, he tried several times to vomit. In forty minutes he discharged feces-in forty-five there was a great secretion of saliva-in fifty minutes a hemorrhage from the nose-and in sixty he died."(11)
In three other such experiments the results were the same with the time of death ranging from fifteen minutes to thirty-six hours.(12) While the subjects of these experiments and examples were not all human, the results clearly exposed mercury for what it was; a poison. It was no wonder that the general public hesitated to seek treatment for their syphilis. In addition to Tongue’s findings, in 1811, Andrew Mathias printed this statement, “There are many preparations of mercury…which are not only unnecessary, but are really so hurtful that they cannot be too soon corrected.” He lobbied for the cessation of the injection method entirely.(13) During the late 1700’s mercury was almost abandoned by the medical profession as a treatment for syphilis because of the severe health risks associated with it.(14) Despite the obviously poisonous nature of mercury and the social sentiment against its use, it continued to be the industry standard for the treatment of syphilis.
With Mathias’ work, voices started to be heard. Some professionals began to speak out against the unlimited use of mercury as a curative agent. W. R. Gowers was, perhaps, the most outspoken of these critics. In 1890, he lectured to the Medical Society of London and his words were transcribed for both medical journals and books. In these lectures he said, “There are two points in the treatment of syphilitic diseases of the nervous system on which a word of caution is urgently needed. The first is regarding the prolonged administration of anti-syphilitic drugs…here then I would range myself with the minority-a minority fast growing in size, especially in Germany-with those who hold the long continued treatment by small doses of mercury or iodide is a mistake, great and dangerous.”(15) This was a resounding condemnation of the proliferation of mercury as a drug in front of one of the most prestigious medical societies in the world. Voices were beginning to be heard railing against the use of mercury as a medicine. Unfortunately for the syphilitic patient, it would be many years before a more effective and safer cure was found.
Despite the fact that mercury was extremely hazardous to the health of their patients, doctors continued to prescribe mercury in various forms for many years. This was done in disregard for the evidence of the debilitating effects of the metal on the human body. This was also done with disregard for many patients’ wishes. The effect that this callous attitude may have had on Victorian society may well be incalculable. However, one could theorize that this attitude on the part of the doctors may have exacerbated a problem of trust between the common people and the doctors themselves. If this were the case it would have hindered the beneficial causes that that era’s doctors were fighting for, such as universal vaccination.
Endnotes
1 Hyde, J. N., Montgomery, F. H. A Manual of Syphilis and the Venereal Diseases. W. B. Saunders: Philadelphia, 1895, pg. 232.
2 An excerpt from the three pages mentioned above; “Mercury…may produce toxic effects…One of the most common and unpleasant of these results is salivation, an accident displayed in many grades. In the slightest grade there is moderate fetor of the of the breath; slight ispissation of the saliva; some tenderness of the teeth, more particularly of the molars when brought together…All of these symptoms may be exaggerated in various grades to the point where the parotid and submaxillary glands become tender and tumid, the saliva flows in a full stream from the mouth, the teeth are loosened and fall…The breath in all cases has an unmistakable and nauseous odor, and the patient is also generally in a depressed condition of mind and disturbed in most of the bodily function.
Ibid, pg. 250.
3 Ibid, pg. 246.
4 Murphy, J. K., Power, D. A System of Syphilis, Volume II. Oxford University Press: London, 1908, pg. 260.
5 Ibid, pg. 261.
6 Murphy, J. K., Power, D. A System of Syphilis, Volume VI. Oxford University Press: London, 1908, pg. 231.
7 Tongue, James. An Inaugural Dissertation, upon the three following subjects: I. An Attempt to Prove, that the Lues Venera was not introduced into Europe from America: II. An Experimental Inquiry into the Modus Operandi of Mercury, in Curing the Lues Venera: III. Experimental Proofs that the Lues Venera, and Gonorrhoea, are Two Different Forms of Disease. Indexed in Early American Imprints no. 1427. Microopaque, American Antiquarian Society: Worcester, MA, 1972, pg. 60.
8 1 scruple = 1.296 grams.
9 Mercurous Chloride.
10 1 drachm = 3.888 grams.
11 Ibid, pg. 61.
12 Ibid.
13 Mathias, Andrew. The Mercurial Disease: An Inquiry into the History and Nature of the Disease, Produced in the Human Constitution by the Use of Mercury: With Observations on Its Connection with the Lues Venera. Indexed in Early American Imprints no. 23356. Microopaque, American Antiquarian Society: Worcester, MA, 1972, pg. 185.
14 Murphy, J. K., Power, D. A System of Syphilis, Volume II. Oxford University Press: London, 1908, pg. 261.
15 Gowers, W. R. Syphilis and the Nervous System; Being a Revised Reprint of the Lettsomian Lectures for 1890 Delivered Before the Medical Society of London. P. Blakiston, Son & Co.: Philadelphia, 1892, pg. 119.
Bibliography
Gowers, W. R. Syphilis and the Nervous System; Being a Revised Reprint of the Lettsomian Lectures for 1890 Delivered Before the Medical Society of London. P. Blakiston, Son & Co.: Philadelphia, 1892.
Hyde, J. N., Montgomery, F. H. A Manual of Syphilis and the Venereal Diseases. W. B. Saunders: Philadelphia, 1895.
Mathias, Andrew. The Mercurial Disease: An Inquiry into the History and Nature of the Disease, Produced in the Human Constitution by the Use of Mercury: With Observations on Its Connection with the Lues Venera. Indexed in Early American Imprints no. 23356. Microopaque, American Antiquarian Society: Worcester, MA, 1972.
Murphy, J. K., Power, D. A System of Syphilis, Volume II. Oxford University Press: London, 1908.
Murphy, J. K., Power, D. A System of Syphilis, Volume VI. Oxford University Press: London, 1908.
Tongue, James. An Inaugural Dissertation, upon the three following subjects: I. An Attempt to Prove, that the Lues Venera was not introduced into Europe from America: II. An Experimental Inquiry into the Modus Operandi of Mercury, in Curing the Lues Venera: III. Experimental Proofs that the Lues Venera, and Gonorrhoea, are Two Different Forms of Disease. Indexed in Early American Imprints no. 1427. Microopaque, American Antiquarian Society: Worcester, MA, 1972.
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