cv
note appended to "Lepra Arabum," written in the early part of the last century thus expresses his views on the subject:—
"It is well known that the Eastern nations were the first who employed mercury in the cure of obstinate, cutaneous and leprous affections; and it may be questioned whether the natives of India were before the Arabian or only second in order in availing themselves of the virtues of that powerful mineral. Rhases,[1] Mesu and Avicenna[2] all notice it, and according to Fallopius, as we find observed by Le Clerc in his "Histoire de la Médicine" pp. 771-791, it was the opinions of those writers which first suggested its use in venereal diseases.[3]
- ↑ "Argentum vivum cum extinguitur ardens est, quod scabei, et pediculis auxilium offert"—Rhazes: "de Re med." (lib iii. cap. xxiv). In the days of Pliny the Elder the medicinal virtues of mercury do not appear to have been at all ascertained; that writer termed quicksilver the bane and poison of all things and what would with more propriety be called death silver. "Nat. Hist." lib xxxiii. Cap. vi).
- ↑ Avicenna says of mercury "argentum vivum extinctum adversus pediculos et lendes cum rosaseo oleo valet." Vide ." lib. ii. tract. ii. p. 119.
- ↑ Trans. R. As. Soc. (1824-27).
