Mercurius sulphuricus

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Mercurius Protosulphide.)

Pharmacology. — This is known as the -Black sulphide of mercury, Black Sulphuret of mercury, and the Subsulphuret of mercury.

It is a black, impalpable powder, having none of the metallic lustre of mercury, and in its combination loses the characteristic appearance of the mercurial particles.

It may be prepared by triturating mercury and sublimed sulphur together in their atomic proportions. Thus: carefully weigh out one hundred grains pure mercury (quicksilver), and thirty-two grains sublimed sulphur, mix very thoroughly in a mortar which has been carefully washed and thoroughly dried, and then triturate with force from two and one-half to three hours.

Officinal Preparations. — Triturations to the 6 x ; dilutions. Analogues. — Arsenicum, Baptisia, Rhus, Terbinthina.

Characteristic Symptoms.

Febrile heat, pungent; pulse small, weak, 120-130; great

weakness; paleness or flushing of the face in the middle

and after part of the day. Drowsiness or wakefulness, with restlessness; unconsciousness,

with muttering delirium. Headache in the forehead. Eyes with dark circles under

them ; lips dry and shrunken ; tongue shrunken, covered

with a dark brown crust; stiff, dry and black. Abdomen tender, particularly in the coecal and epigastric

region, distended (tympanitic). Urination frequent,

scanty.

Diarrhoea bilious, dark yellow, watery, preceded by colic; followed by fainting; not profuse or frequent, only two or three evacuations a day.

° In the second stage of typhoid fever, with local lesion in the solitary and aggregated glands of the ilium, without much ulceration of the mucous membrane.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

The use of this medicine in typhoid fever is attracting the attention of English and European homoeopathists.

Dr. Serres, of Paris (allopathist), was the first to use it, but in the crude form.

Dr. Petros was the first homoeopathist who used it in typhoids, and always in the 12th potency. He left on record two cases

which illustrate its action, and give the groups of symptoms for which it is indicated.

Dr. Von Tunzelmann, of London, has lately brought it again to notice, and gives some additional indications for its use. I have collected all the known indications (no provings have been made), and arranged them in the following groups:

Febrile heat, pungent, pulse small, weak, 120-130; great weakness; 'paleness or flushing of the face in the middle and after part of the day. Drowsiness, or wakefulness, with restlessness; unconsciousness, with delirium.

Headache in the forehead. Eyes with dark circles under them ; lips dry and shrunken ; tongue shrunken, covered with a darkbrown crust, stiff*, dry, and black.

Abdomen tender, particularly in the coecal and epigastric regions, distended (tympanitic). Urination frequent, scanty.

Diarrhoea — bilious, dark-yellow, watery, preceded by colic; followed by fainting ; not profuse or frequent, only two or three evacuations a day.

Pathological Indications. — Dr. Petros says this remedy is unsuitable in the first stages of typhoid. Dr. Von Tunzelmann says :

I should say that the place of the Protosulphide of mercury in typhoid fever is between Baptisia and Arsenicum, in cases where Baptism has not been able to arrest the progress of the disease, or where the case has not been seen within the first ten days, and the local lesion in the solitary and aggregated glands of the ileum not had time to become distinctly developed ; at the same time absence of marked diarrhoea, showing that no great amount of ulceration of the mucous membrane at the seat of the inflamed glands has taken place.

I should say that Merc, sulphide comes after Baptisia and before Terebinthina, for generally Arsenicum is not indicated until after Turpentine has been used.

I have lately seen a singularly high encomium of the antiseptic powers of the “ Ethiops Mineral,” as this is called in a Spanish medical work by Dr. Murino.

The following extracts from Dr. Murino’s book are given :

Professor Socrates Cadet, for a long time devoted to the study of contagion, in order to discover an efficient means to annihilate or neutralize it, found that

Ethiops mineral (black Sulphuret of mercury) possesses the two virtues above mentioned, namely, to abolish the contagion, and yet to prove innocent in regard to the person using it. He subjected it to every proof ; wrote to his colleagues in the profession; and the solemn and indisputable facts have confirmed his theory. And that Ethiops mineral is truly an anchor of safety, in such diseases, by the testimony of solemn and well-known facts, and of men the most learned and distinguished, is also proved by the special nature of contagion, which, being parasitic, cannot but be subdued by that salutary agent which is par excellence an antiparasitic.

Then with a full consciousness of what I am uttering, with my “ soul in my pen,” if an antiquated expression will be pardoned, with a profound conviction, the result of a varied experience instituted by myself in cholera, in croup, in diphtheria, and in convulsive cough, I call upon all parents, all instructors, those in charge of institutions, and, in general, all heads and directors of industrial establishments, arsenals, colleges, and schools, who wish to preserve themselves, their children, and dependents, from communicable diseases, on every invasion of contagious maladies, to provide themselves with Ethiop’s mineral, and to take it and administer it every day to those under their care, with a view to preserve them wholly from the threatening contagion.

I know that many, even among physicians, will smile at the idea of Ethiops mineral producing such marvellous effects ; but let those deride who have not seen, as I have seen, cholera in ten persons cured with Ethiops mineral in less than one hour ; who have not seen, as I have seen, an entire religious community preserved by the same agent, though living in a convent where there was a lazaretto containing not less than a hundred cholera patients constantly. Let those deride who have not seen, as I have seen, many children attacked with croup cured in less than two days ; who have not witnessed, as I have, more than seventy children with diphtheria cured by the use of Ethiops mineral.

If half the virtues alleged of this medicine belong to it, we shall reap great benefit from its use. It might be used as a prophylactic of typhoid fever.

It might be tested in private practice where there is danger — in typhoid epidemics — of the disease spreading through families or villages ; or it could be tested in hospitals into which typhoid fever patients had been introduced.

It may prove a valuable aid to Baptisia, in preventing a disease which the latter remedy is so powerful to arrest in its incipient stage.

[No clinical experience with this drug has appeared since the last edition. — Hale.]