Observation on the Use and Abuse of Mercury, and on the Precautions Necessary in its Employment

For many years after its introduction into practice, it was confined to a few diseases. At length it occurred to physicians, that a remedy, which in these proved so efficacious, might produce similar effects in other cases; and such has been the success of the trial, that during the last twenty years mercury has been coming into general use, with a rapidity unequalled in the history of any other medicine. But the more we are assured of its value, the more cautious we ought to be in its employment; both because it is of the greater consequence to prevent any prepossession against it, and because we know that there is no active medicine which can safely be trifled with.