Sprengel fixes the year 1497 as that in which mercury was first
employed externally for the cure of syphilis. Frictions, fumigations,
and plasters were the earliest forms in which it was employed.
Berenger de Carpi, a famous surgeon and anatomist of Bologna, who
practised in the early part of the sixteenth century, is said to have
made an immense fortune by inventing and prescribing frictions with
mercurial ointment for syphilis. John de Vigo was a strong partisan of
fumigations in obstinate cases. His fumigations were made from cinnabar
and storax. It is not quite clear whether this physician gave red
precipitate internally in syphilis. He expressly indicates its internal
use in plague.