A treatise on mercury, exhibiting its wonderful powers when taken in a crude state / translated ... by an English medical gentleman. With observations in a preface, by R. Carlile.

  • Belloste, Augustin, 1654-1730
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on mercury, exhibiting its wonderful powers when taken in a crude state / translated ... by an English medical gentleman. With observations in a preface, by R. Carlile. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It liquifies and resolves all unnatural unions; by the former of which properties it hinders the progress of a disease, which might otherwise increase, and occasion the person’s death; and by the latter it destroys the tumour, and acts upon the excrescence, as it does on scirrhus, glandular tumours, and obstructions Finally, to put an end to this treatise, which is already too long, though I find it is difficult to finish it on the account of the new proofs which continually offer, I will add this short reflection, with¬ out abusing my reader’s patience any longer. Every one is sensible that all countries abound with a great number of people of no service to the community, who are kept at a considerable expence in hospitals, on account of several real and pretended infirmities, which their manner of living, either in laziness, or in fatigue and misery has brought upon them, who pass for incurables, and are really so at last, for want of using the only remedy which is capaple of curing them speedily, and with small expence. Crude mercury taken at the mouth would clear the hospitals of them all, and re-establish numbers of slothful vagabonds in a con¬ dition to work; who, under a pretext of certain maladies, which they industriously cherish and prolong till they become contagious, infect whole cities and countries, and extort alms, which they apply to evil uses. Note.—Since I sent the foregoing Treatise to the Printer, I re¬ solved, as there is a clamour about this Crude Mercury, or Quick¬ silver, being a poison, to poison myself first, by way of fair play. I sent first for an ounce, then for four ounces; and now, for ten days, I have swallowed, each day, a little globule, about the size of an ordinary or rather large pill. I have found its action upon my body precisely what I expected, from the confidence I had placed in the statement of Belloste; and I now vouch for the ac¬ curacy of that statement, as to the general qualities of Crude Mer¬ cury. Swallow it as a metal, in its pure state: any mixture is likely to corrupt it. As far as I was in need of benefit, I have found it, and feel its virtues throughout #ny frame. I have been for five years subject to rheumatic attacks, particularly the sciatica, and had, consequently, taken to wear flannel next the skin; but, in consequence of the power and virtues of Mercury to dispel this disease, I have thrown off my flannels, and feel, at this moment, in