Mercury Chalk – Treatment for Syphilis
Antique amber glass bottle, with a boxwood and cork stopper.
Handwritten label, pen inscription ‘Mercurial Chalk’, neat calligraphy with its thick and thin strokes.
Bottom band ‘TO BE SEPARATED’, instructing the pharmacist to store it in the cabinet for toxic substances, the famous poison cabinet.
It comes from the former cellar-laboratory of a Parisian pharmacy. The bottles had not been moved from the shelves since the late 1950s. The cellar had served as a medical analysis laboratory and a laboratory for the pharmacy’s compounded preparations from 1900 until around 1950.
Period: Judging by the handwriting, late 19th century
EMPTY
Description
Mercury Chalk – Treatment for Syphilis
Antique amber glass bottle, with a boxwood and cork stopper.
Handwritten label, inscribed in pen with ‘Mercury Chalk’, in neat calligraphy, with its thick and thin strokes.
Lower band reading ‘TO BE SEPARATED’, instructing the pharmacist to store it exclusively in the cabinet for toxic substances, the infamous poison cabinet.
Mercury, and therefore mercurial chalk, was for a very long time the primary treatment for syphilis; there were no other alternatives. Yet it was completely ineffective... . And it caused the patient untold suffering.
The protocol aimed to reach the toxicity threshold; patients then suffered excruciating side effects: profuse salivation of several litres a day, severe mouth ulcers, tooth loss and necrosis of the jaws. The medical profession at the time interpreted these signs of poisoning as proof that the remedy was ‘expelling’ the disease.
Mercury was still in use by some doctors as late as the 1930s.
It comes from the former cellar-laboratory of a Parisian pharmacy. The bottles had not been moved from the shelves since the late 1950s. The cellar had served as a medical analysis laboratory and a laboratory for the pharmacy’s compounded preparations from 1900 until around 1950.
Height of the bottle: 12cm with stopper
Period: Judging by the handwriting, late 19th century
EMPTY
