In 1496, a doctor in Verona rubbed mercury ointment onto a patient’s syphilis sores — and it seemed to work. For the next four hundred years, mercury became medicine’s default cure for the disease, delivered as ointments, vapor baths, and pills, even as it rotted patients’ teeth and gums and gave them violent tremors. This is the story of the “cure” that was sometimes worse than the disease it treated, and the 1910 discovery that finally ended its four-century reign.
Shop the styles/items featured in this video:
- Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything (book)
- Antique-style ceramic apothecary jar (replica decor)
- A History of Medicine (illustrated reference book)
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