and the same exposure may cause tremor in one and salivation in another. Professor Haidinger of Vienna some time ago mentioned to me an accident a barometer-maker of his acquaintance met with, which illustrates both of these statements. This man and one of his workmen were exposed one night during sleep to the vapours of mercury from a pot on a stove, in which a fire had been accidentally kindled. They were both most severely affected, the latter with salivation, which caused the loss of all his teeth, the former with shaking palsy, which lasted his whole life.
In regard to all such workmen, it is exceedingly probable that with proper care the evils of their trade may be materially diminished. This appears at least to be the result of the observations made long ago by Jussieu on the miners of Almaden in La Mancha. Most quicksilver mines are noted for great mortality among the workmen. But Jussieu maintains that the trade is not by any means so necessarily or so dreadfully unhealthy as is represented, or as it really is in some places. The free workmen at Almaden, he says, by taking care on leaving the mine to change their whole dress, particularly their shoes, preserved their health, and lived as long as other people; but the poor slaves, who could not afford a change of raiment, and who took their meals in the mine, generally without even washing their hands, were subject to swelling of the parotids, aphthous sore throat, salivation, pustular eruptions, and tremors.[1]
Of the indirect effects of mercurial erethysm.—The last division of the secondary effects of mercury relates to its indirect action when concurring with other diseases or predispositions to disease.
Of these effects there are some of which the poison appears to be the chief, if not even the sole cause. Thus, during the symptomatic fever which precedes salivation there are sometimes remarked imitative inflammations, or coma, or affections of the heart, which go off as salivation is established.
Other effects require the distinct co-operation of collateral causes. Many inflammatory diseases, not-easily excited in ordinary circumstances, arise readily from improper exposures during salivation, for example dropsy, pneumonia, phrenitis, iritis, erysipelas, and various chronic eruptions.
Other effects again require the co-operation of disease, such as sloughing gangrene supervening on ordinary ulcers during the action of mercury,—a not uncommon accident. This appears most likely to happen when the ulcers are constitutional.
Lastly, in conjunction with other diseased morbid actions, either going on at the same time, or immediately preceding mercurial erethysm, this poison is apt to occasion some modifications of disease which are rarely otherwise witnessed. Modifications of the kind have already been traced in the instances of lues venerea and scrofula; but there is reason to believe that the same singular property may also exist in relation to other constitutional disorders.
These observations conclude the inquiry into the symptoms caused
- ↑ Mém. de l'Acad. des Sciences, 1719, p. 474.
