Mercury Cure
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The 400-Year Cure That Was Worse Than The Disease | Object Histories
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…