Mercury: General Aspects
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2003 Jan / Feb VOL V NO 1.
Dr Manu Kothari
Dr Lopa Mehta
Mercury (Mercurius), the Roman God of merchandise and merchants (from merx, meaning merchandise), is also identified with Hermes, and its statue in the Vatican Museum carries the staff of Caduceus, the symbol of medical practice even today.
Mercury as interests medical men in Latin Hydrorgyrum or liquid/quick silver. As a metal that flows more rapidly than water, it is a miracle element, its average percentage in igneous rocks being 10-7, and is principally extracted from cinnabar, the red sulphide HgS ore. It is widely extracted, maximally in the US and keeps pace with industrial demand. Its multi-fold use is fraught with inadvertent poisoning that now threatens both animal life and the earth.
Elementary Mercury is rapidly absorbed through the skin. The greatest source of danger in industrial and research laboratories lies in the inhalation of mercury vapours, leading to chronic mercury poisoning. There is salivation, gingivitis, loss of appetite, nutritional disturbances, progressive renal damage and anaemia. Total withdrawal from mercury exposure is the answer.
Mercury compounds have found widespread application in medicine in the past, but because of its well recognized toxicity, no longer Mercury salts are used as teething powders, astringents, antiseptics, disinfectants, antisyphilitics and diuretics. Apart from above manifestations, skin sensitisation, discolouration of the lens, psychic disturbances known as erethism or ‘mad as a hatter’cerebellar degeneration and other CNS disturbances occur. Its appearance is seductive, its ingestion so potently dangerous.
In this age of HIV-AIDS, one recalls a medieval saying: ‘A night with Venus, the whole life with Mercury’s, Syphilis was a common consequence of unprotected sex in the medieval ages, and the treatment was with Mercury salts. Retrospective insight has shown that Fernel observed in the 16th Century - the syndrome ascribed to syphilis were basically the side effects and rash toxicity of therapeutic Mercury. There is a strong possibility, given the current HIV-AIDS mania, that much of what is ascribed to HIV-AIDS may be an iatrogenic outcome of unwarranted diagnosis and the highly immuno-depressive therapy euphemistically called ART=(Anti Retroviral Therapy). The importance of the lessons that Mercury left behind are being relevant albeit in a global and modern way.
Homoeopathy with its Hahnemannian genius for harmless
deliverance through endless dilutions, may have a potent answer to the hidden
therapeutic secrets of this otherwise divine element. Therefore it would be
wrong to discard its efficacy, against whatever maladies, the final court of
appeal may lie with the Homoeopathic approach. In fact, potentization thro’
progressive dilution may be one way of pico (10-12) and
nano (10-9) therapy, that is catching up today with
allopathy.
The intellectual battle, then between Allopathy and Homoeopathy, may somehow
lie in the deftness with which Homoeopathy handles its repertories and Mercury’s
Homoeopathic efficacy may be the answer.
