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The Use Of Metal Compounds For Medicine

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Calomel was a compound of mercury and chloride. In the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, it was popular for physicians to use metal compounds for medicine. Calomel was used because it helped the body rid itself of the humor black bile humor. Like jalap, calomel was also dangerous. Frequent usage led to the falling out of teeth and hair. Despite the dangers, Rush began to use ten grains of each for his purges. In today’s standards, this dosage was six hundred and forty-seven milligrams. This amount was not producing the purges that Rush wanted. He kept his amount of ten grains of calomel. In order to produce larger stomach purges, Rush gave his patients a new regiment of fifteen grains of jalap. This is around nine hundred and seventy-one milligrams by today’s standards. Rush had tripled the usual dosage. This new combination produced four to five purges a day. Rush claimed that he had saved four out of five lives with this prescription. Ironically, Rush was against the combination of calomel and jalap when it was used in military hospitals during the Revolution. He stated that their effects were too violent on the patient’s system. He wrote that the combination was disproportionate to the weakness of the patient during a fever. However, since Rush followed the European methods, he disregarded his old mindset. With Mitchell’s theory, Rush had to induce large purges. This combination was going to provide him with that. In addition to purging the stomach Rush

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