Lecture on mercurial trade disease / by E.D. Mapother.

  • Mapother, E. D. (Edward Dillon), 1835-1908.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lecture on mercurial trade disease / by E.D. Mapother. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    faces. He is now very bald, and this, with tho charac- teristic paleness and wrinkled state of his face, gives him the appearance of a very old man. Loss of spirits, weak- ening of virile power, and disinclination for the least ex- ertion or for amusement, were the early symptoms, and he at last became as apathetic as a sailor with sea scurvy, and, by the way, from the same cause, want of red blood- cells. He lost appetite for food, but drank porter rather plentifully. Spirits he could not touch, as a very small quantity would intoxicate him in his weakly state. He always had more or less of the “ trembles,” and even now, after several months’ abstinence from work, shakes a little, and as the muscles have no enduring power of con- traction, he cannot stand steadily. I may mention that he never knew a fellow-workman escape the disease in Dublin, whereas in Liverpool a minority suffered. You see, therefore, that the ill-effects of this trade are very deplorable, and, if generally known, would cast an expression of sadness over many a face reflected in the mirrors, the making of which have caused the evils ; but, happily, they are in a great measure preventable. The nature of the disease is somewhat obscure, but must consist in one or more of the following conditions : the spoiling of the nervous tissue, of the muscular tissue, or of the blood, of which you know a pure and plentiful supply is wanted for active muscular movement. Into all of these components of our body albumen, and the substances allied to it enter most largely, and it may be that the mercurial salt coagulates and spoils them in the body, as it would in the chemists’ test tube. A grain of corrosive sublimate will coagulate some hundreds of grains of albumen before its effects are neutralised. So that when Baron Thenard had accidentally taken a little of that poison he had to swallow as an antidote about a dozen eggs. The blood cells are composed of an albuminoid, and when they have disappeared by prolonged maceration