Unregulated potions still cause mercury poisoning

Probable first report of a motor deafferentation syndrome in the Paraguayan War

The Paraguayan War ended 150 years ago. Back then, there were outbreaks of combatants' limb weakness and tingling related to "palustrian cachexia", not clearly funded at the time on nutritional deficiency, the use of native flora to feed troops, and alcoholism. We report a case of a soldier with ascending paralysis, mental confusion and finally tetraplegia with preserved oculomotricity. This would probably be a case of locked-in syndrome (LIS) due to Gayet-Wernicke's encephalopathy consequent to thiamine deficiency. The role of thiamine in the peripheral or central nervous system expression was shown decades later to be related to poor diet, or use of foods containing thiaminase or thiamine antagonists, worsened by the fact that the bodily stores of thiamine are restricted, and deficits may grow fast.

Old Hickory's Violent Past Medical History

The past medical history (PMH) of Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) reflects one of the emblematic nicknames in Americana, “Old Hickory.” As a 14-year-old Rebel volunteer in the Revolutionary War, he survived a blow from a British saber and smallpox that he contacted in a prison camp epidemic. In 1806, Jackson challenged a rival who had made the mistake of maligning his beloved wife Rachel. He deliberately allowed his opponent to shoot him in the chest, and then killed him when he took his turn. A gunshot shattered his arm in an 1813 street fight that involved Thomas Hart Benton, who later became his ally in the United States Senate during his presidency. His PMH would not include a duel in 1787, where both parties shot and somehow missed; an escape from a party of Indians in 1791; a shootout in 1796 with the future governor of Tennessee; and in 1833 and 1835, the first two assassination attempts on a United States President. Wracked from a lifetime of maladies and wounds, he sought relief through heavy doses of nostrums laced with heavy metals and self-phlebotomy. He likely hastened his own death. The PMH gives perspective on a patient's present condition. In Jackson's case, it reveals traits that allowed him to survive and thrive in a dangerous age. His belligerence, fiery temper, and intransigence were qualities that led to success in war against the British and the Native American tribes of the southern United States, and in a political career that climaxed as the seventh United States President.

A forensic hypothesis for the mystery of al-Hasan's death in the 7th century: Mercury(I) chloride intoxication

The puzzle of a mysterious death in the Middle Ages has been hypothesized in terms of contemporary forensic legal and scientific methods. That al-Hasan ibn-'Ali died in 669 aged just 45 has been forensically analyzed based on written sources that dictate eyewitness accounts of historical events. The report of the contemporaneous poisoning of another individual who resided under the same household as al-Hasan's and experienced similar, yet non-lethal, symptoms has served as the beginning of the analysis. In light of ancient (medieval) documents and through using mineralogical, medical, and chemical facts, it has been hypothesized that mineral calomel (mercury(I) chloride, Hg2Cl2) from a certain region in the Byzantine Empire (present-day western Turkey) was the substance primarily responsible for the murder of al-Hasan.