Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

venereal disease.
He first wore buboes 60 dreadful to the sight,
First felt strange pains and sleepless past the night;
From him the malady receiv’d its name,
The neighboring shepherds catcht the spreading flame.
The greater part, and with success more sure,
By mercury perform the happy cure;
A wondrous virtue in the mineral lies….
This done, wrapt close and swath’d, repair to bed,
And there let such thick cov’rings be o’erspred
Till streams of sweat from ev’ry pore you force:
For twice five days you must repeat this course;
Severe indeed but you your fate must bear,
And signs of coming health will streight appear.
The mass of humours now dissolv’d within,
To purge themselves by spittle will begin,
Till you with wonder at your feet shall see
A tide of filth, and bless this remedy’.
1533 ‘De Medicina Guaiací 61 , et Morbo Gallico; Liber uno’ [About the
Guaicum medicine, and the French disease; Book 1] by Ulrich von
Hutten (1488–1523) mentions ulcerated throat, palate, cheeks, and
tongue due to mercury as well as loose teeth and swollen gums all of
which gave a flow of saliva and an unbearable stench so that they
were unable to eat. Some developed vertigo and tremors whilst
others went insane or died (Abramowitiz, 1934). As this is a
translation I have changed some of it into modern spelling.
Symptoms of mercury poisoning are in bold italics.
‘How men at the beginning resisted this infirmity, the French pox.
Capit. iiij.
When the physicians were thus amazed, the surgeons came
forward in the same error, and put to their hands: and first they
began to burn the sores with hot irons. But for as much as it was an
infinite labour to touch them all, they went about to anoint them by
ointments, but divers men used divers ointments, and all in vain,
except he added quicksilver thereto, they beat for this use the
60 Buboes = tender and large lymph nodes in axilla or groin
61 Guaici = guaicaum wood or resin from the West Indies. It was used from the 16 th century as a cure for
syphilis