212 TREATMENT OF 



the facility with which it is oxidized when intro- 

 duced into the stomach and bowels ; tliis last pro- 

 perty tends rather to weaken, than to strengen and 

 excite the humm frame. (97) This being admitted, 

 it clearly appears that the decoction of mercury, 

 and even mercury itself introduced into our body, 

 are of no importance against verminous complaints, 

 though their use has been highly celebrated ; 98) 

 stiU less can they be adopted in the treatment of 

 worms. The people who work in the mercury 

 mines of Almada, in Spain, are more subject to worms 

 and venerial complaints, ihan to any other; though 

 these individuals, and particularly those who melt 

 the mercury, absorb so enormous a quantity of it, 

 that small globules of this metal are evacuated with 

 the excrements. (ij9) The same thing happens to 

 persons employed in the mines of Lydria, and in 

 the laboratories of Chemnitz, in Hungary, and of 

 Frt'yburg, in Saxony, where the amalgamation 

 with mercury is practised, to purify gold and sil- 

 ver. In these places, I have seen, as it were, ver- 

 minous complaints to be epidemic. 



The labourers are constantly enveloped in humid- 

 ity, badly fed and poorly clothed ; they live indeed 

 in a situation suited to produce asthenic diseases, 

 and consequently conducive to the development of 

 verminous germs. But let us proceed to positive 

 facts. 



Monck has performed a series of experiments 

 to determine the quantity of the mercury which 

 was dissolved in the water in which it had been 



