--- In amalgamillness@yahoogroups.com, Elizabeth Sinkey <westoo@...>
wrote:
>
> Author Louisa May Alcott died of mercury poisoning. She had
contracted typhoid while working as a nurse in an army hospital
during the Civil War. Doctors treated her with calomel which
contains mercury. She recovered from the typhoid fever but her
health continued to deteriorate from mercury poisoning until she died
from it at the age of 56. I have been unable to find anything
describing her specific symptoms but apparently her life was a
struggle after the calomel treatments and she got progressively worse
over time.
> Treating diseases with mercury compounds continued well into the
1950's that I know of, always with tragic results. I am puzzled as
to why this was allowed to go on and on. I beg to see the logic in
knowingly and deliberately destroying people's lives under the guise
of treating an illness. Come to think of it, use of Hg in medicine
is still destroying lives only now, unlike back in Louisa May
Alcott's day, medical authorities are staunchly denying that it's the
mercury that's the culprit. See what we're up against?
The reason that mercury was used to kill microbes is that it is an
excellent cytotoxin( killer of cells).Unfortunately ,mercury does'nt
discriminate between bacteria etc. and brain and other cells.
> Betsy
>