Goulard, whose name has become inseparably associated with the solution of the acetate. Some account of the bearer of this familiar name, and of his medicinal preparations of lead will be found in the section on Masters in Pharmacy.
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QUICKSILVER
is first alluded to in Greek writings by Theophrastus, about 315 B.C., but it was certainly known and used medicinally by the Chinese and in India long before. Apparently, too, it was known by the Egyptians. Dioscorides invented the name hydrargyrum, or fluid silver, for it. Pliny treats it as a dangerous poison. Galen adopted the opinion that the metal is poisonous, but states that he had no personal knowledge of its effects. With these authors argentum vivum was the term generally used to mean the native quicksilver, while hydrargyrum was more usually employed to describe the quicksilver obtained from the sulphide, cinnabar. Ancient writers appear to have regarded the two substances as distinct. Dioscorides points out that cinnabar was often confused with minium (red lead). The name Mercury, and the association of the metal (or demi-metal, as it was often regarded) with the planet and with its sign, formerly associated with tin, dates from the middle ages. It is mentioned first in this connection in a list of metals by Stephanus of Alexandria, in the seventh century.
