The Abuse of Mercury

Hot face with cold hands and feet.

Great tension, anxiety, fear.

Fear of a crowd, of the future, of the seriousness of his illness; feels sure he will die.

Aggressive restlessness; tumbles about in bed, cannot lie still; sudden startings.

Pulse frequent, hard, wiry.

Great sensitiveness to noises of any sort.

Stools green, like chopped spinach.

Burning heat in the body.

Despondent, irritable mood.

Sensation of small sticks in the rectum.

Violence of all the symptoms.

Remarkable intolerance of milk. As soon as swallowed, it is thrown up in heavy curds.

Indicated in hysteria, chorea, spinal irritation and neurotic states generally, with jerking, trembling, itching.

Twitching of the eye-lids.

Twitching in the face, mouth, muscles of neck, abdomen, extremities.

Child stupid, semi-conscious; does not understand; muttering delirium; stupor, restlessness.

Head burning hot, with fever and anxiety.

Face hot, dark livid, covered with livid rash.

Tongue dry, parched, cracked.

Eyes congested; pupils dilated.

Stools watery and offensive.

Skin of face and of entire body covered with livid, purplish eruption, disappearing on pressure, returning slowly.

Copious, watery and exceedingly acrid nasal discharge.

Tickling in the larynx, with hacking cough upon inspiring cold air.

Derangements of appetite incidental to having a cold, with strong craving for raw onions.

Abdominal flatulency, copious, burning, pressing downward and causing more severe colicky pain.

Sense of “insecurity” when passing flatus.

Even solid stool passes almost unnoticed.

Stool watery, jelly-like, with great amount of flatus.

Burning in the anus and rectum.

Worse early in the morning, desire for stool driving him out of bed; from eating and drinking; in hot, dry weather.

Better in the open air; from discharge of flatus; from local use of cold water.

Loss of appetite; sour eructations, craving for starch, chalk and other indigestible things.

Stool accumulates in the rectum because of lack of desire (and inability) to expel it.

Stools hard, knotty, covered with mucus, followed by bleeding and cutting pain in anus.

Tip of nose looks red.

Thick, red rash all over the body, like scarlet fever rash.

Burning, acrid leucorrhoea, watery; aversion to sexual intercourse.

Menses copious, black, too early, clotted, with sense of great exhaustion and chilliness.

Acrid, hot, watery, coryza, corroding the lips.

Hoarseness and burning of the larynx.

Constipation of hard, crumbling stool, covered with mucus; after stool, smarting and soreness in the rectum.

Diarrhoea of green, mucous stools (occur also during menses).

Leucorrhoea like the white of egg, with colicky pain about the navel.

After urinating, brown, slimy discharge from the vagina.

Tendency to use profane and vulgar language on every occasion.

Distrust of everybody; hypochondriasis; mental irresponsibility and fickleness of purpose.

Sensation as of a hoop or band around a part.

Sensation as though a plug were pressing in different parts of the body (head, eyes, ears, chest, abdomen, etc.).

Excessively irritable, fretful, sulky.

Child cannot bear to be touched or looked at; objects to being washed.

Face covered with pimples; cracks in the corners of the mouth; yellowish crusts on cheek and chin.

Tongue coated thick white, as though covered with milk or whitewashed.

Moist eruption on and behind ears.

Finger-nails split easily; horny growth under the nails.

Horny excrescences over the body.

Gums spongy; bleed easily.

Appetite abnormal; craves acids and pickles.

Constant belching of gas.

Diarrhoea, watery, slimy, windy; stools mixed with hard lumps.

Thick, hard scabs over the body; on the chin; bleed when touched.

Skin covered with pimples and vesicles.

Soles of feet very sensitive; horny growths on the feet.

Great lassitude and drowsiness.

Skin cold; covered with clammy, sticky perspiration.

Tongue thinly coated white, with red papillae, red, in streaks or dyr in the median line.

Pustules on the body, leaving a bluish-red mark; they develop slowly and are slow in passing through suppuration.

Tired, as if bruised all over.

Bag-like swelling under the eyes.

Fever without thirst.

Tickling in the little spot on the posterior pharynx, exciting cough which stops as soon as a bit of mucus is raised.

Severe concussive cough; it painfully jars the head, so he must bend the head back and hold it to relieve the severity of the shock.

Diarrhoea of yellow-green stools, in the morning, with abdominal soreness.

Enlargement and burning-stinging pain in the ovaries, especially right.

Bearing down as if menses would appear, followed by scanty discharge of black mucus.

Hoarseness and aphonia, in professional singers.

Cough, excited by laughing.

Viscid, jelly-like mucus in the larynx, coughed up in the morning.

Easy expectoration of substance looking like boiled starch.

Face aged, withered, bluish.

Pains increase and decrease gradually.

Always in a hurry.

Great longing for fresh air.

Great desire for sweets.

Apprehension and dread of meeting people, of being in a crowd. Going to some public entertainment brings on diarrhoea.

Erroneous perception; as to time, minutes seem hours; as to gait, a slow gait seems fast.

Feeling as though the affected parts were expanding.

Headache, relieved by tightly bandaging the head, with creeping, crawling sensation in the scalp.

Great heat in the eyes; it dries up the eyelashes.

Coughing when singing a high note; chronic hoarseness.

Excessive gastric flatulency; seems as though stomach would burst; gas belched up with great difficulty and much noise.

Diarrhoea, green like spinach, in flakes, as soon as he drinks or eats sweets.

Ulcerative soreness in the middle of the urethra as from a splinter. When passing the last drops of urine, cutting pain from the posterior urethra to anus.

Better in the open air; when the wind blows in his face; from belching up of gas.

Sore, lame, bruised feeling all over, as though beaten.

Fears being touched; dreads having anyone come near him.

Oversensitiveness to pain.

Head hot, the rest of the body cool.

Taste as from a bad egg; pressure in the stomach as from a stone.

Stools offensive, brown, putrid, bloody; after stool exhausted, so he is obliged to lie down.

Skin covered with itching, burning, small pimples and boils.

Black and blue spots on the body.

Face pale, sunken, cachetic, cold, covered with cold sweat; eyes sunken; agonized expression.

Great anguish; despair; fear of death; suicidal tendency.

Sleeps with the hands over the head.

Pulse small, rapid, intermittent.

Eructation of bitter, sour substance, irritating the throat as though from an acid.

Burning pain, as though from a live coal, in the affected part (carbuncles; stomach; abdomen).

Diarrhoea of dark-brown stools; of cadaverous carrion-like odor; worse from eating or drinking.

Diarrhoea like chopped egg, horribly foul, preceded by restlessness and anguish, followed by great prostration and burning in the rectum.

Every effort is followed by exhaustion; when lying still he is less conscious of his weakness.

Dry, bran-like, scaly eruption, with itching and burning, worse from scratching.

Saliva profuse, acrid, excoriating the parts it touches; worse from exposure to sharp wind.

Voice uncertain; hoarseness.

Discharge of fetid, green, purulent matter from nose and ears.

Great mental depression; talks of committing suicide. Often accompanied with cerebral congestion and sexual furor.

Profound depression, followed by sudden, but temporary, cheerfulness.

Hypersensitiveness of special senses.

Pain about the eye, in the bony structures, extending from above downward, into the eye-ball.

Fetid odor, like old cheese, from the mouth; on young girls at puberty.

Burning-itching in the vagina, inducing self-abuse; parts sensitive.

Worse in the morning; in cold air; in the winter, when obliged to be quiet; from abuse of mercury.