
Mercury for Syphilis
Mercury is a dangerous substance you’ve probably seen used in older-style thermometers, but can you believe doctors used it to treat syphilis and other venereal diseases? That’s right. Mercury was used in the late 1800s and early 1900s to treat syphilis. Since mercury is a diuretic, doctors believed they could expel the disease from your body when you ingested it. It seems extremely dangerous to us. Can you believe it was used for over 450 years to treat this? Mercury is the only metal on Earth that is a liquid at room temperature. Once antibiotics appeared, mercury became obsolete, and doctors stopped using it. Medicine has really come a long way since the early 1900s!