It was no unusual practice for physicians of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries to use calomel in scruple, and even drachm doses. Mazerne
"habitually administered calomel in scruple doses." Yandal gave it by the
table-spoonful. I knew a physician in Maine who usually administered it by
the tea-spoonful, and I saw a woman at Deer Isle, Me., suffering from true
anchylosis of the jaw, in consequence of thus taking his prescription. In
the same town was a man who was made completely imbecile by overdoses of
mercury. In the town of B----l, same county and state, once lived an old
quack, for convenience sake, near a large graveyard. _He "owned" it._ That
is, he is said to have more victims laid away therein than all the other
doctors who ever practised in town. "I knew him well." Once he sent to
Boston for _two ounces_ of calomel. There was no steam conveyance in those
days, and a sea captain took the order. By some mistake, _two pounds_ were
sent. It was not returned. "O, never mind," said the doctor; "I shall use
it all some time."
Every state, county, yes, every town, in the Union has its victims to this
quackery. In Rochelle, Ill., is a remarkable case, a merchant. Almost
every joint in his frame is rendered useless. He can speak, and his brain
is active. He has a large store, and he is carried to it every day, and
there, stretched upon a counter, he gives directions to his employés.
Though comparatively young, his hair is blanched like the snow-drift,
falling upon his shoulders, and he is hopelessly crippled for life. "He
does not speak in very flattering terms of the calomel doctors," said my
informant. Neither do the thousands of diseased and mutilated soldiers,
the victims to quackery while in the army.
"SPEAKING FACTS.--A little boy, ten years of age, and having a paralyzed
right leg, may be seen occasionally among his more able-bodied companions,
the newsboys, unsuccessfully striving to 'hoe his row' with his rougher
and more vigorous fellows. The limb is wholly dead, so far as its
usefulness is concerned and it was caused by giving the little fellow
overdoses of calomel, when he was an infant.
"Another victim to calomel lives in the city of Hartford, in the person of
a young lady of sixteen, who would be handsome but for deformities of face
and mouth, occasioned by calomel given to her when a little child. She
cannot open her mouth, and her food is always gruel, etc., introduced
through the teeth. But the doctors stick to calomel as the sheet anchor of
their faith."
Behold WASHINGTON, who had passed through the battles of his country
unharmed, and who in his last illness had, in the brief space of twelve
hours, ninety ounces of blood drawn from his veins, and in the same space
of time taken sixty grains of calomel!
Who wonders that he should request his physician to allow him to "_die in
peace_"?
Andrew Jackson was another victim to calomel, as well as to the lancet, as
the following letter shows:--
"HERMITAGE, October 24, 1844.
"MY DEAR MR. BLAIR: On the 12th inst., I had a return of hemorrhage,
and two days after, a chill. With a lancet to correct the first, and
calomel to check the second, I am _greatly debilitated_.