Lincoln's Little Blue Pills

[Calypso 465]

Below are the lines that I like most from "The Gettysburg Address." These have nothing much to do with the quoted article that follows but I am just sayin'...

"The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us..."

The little blue pills that sent Abraham Lincoln into a rage

The Blue Mass pills taken as antidepressants by Abraham Lincoln contained dangerously high levels of mercury likely to have caused his notoriously wild temper, scientists have found.

By Heidi Blake

Published: 7:30AM GMT 23 Mar 2010

The 16th President of the United States took the pills in the 1850s to alleviate what one contemporary described as the “cave of gloom” in which he lived.

But researchers who analysed a recently unearthed sample of the medicine discovered it contained up to 120 times the acceptable daily intake of mercury.

Scientists at the Royal Society of Chemistry, where the tests were carried out, believe the high mercury content in the pills is what caused Lincoln’s famous verbal and physical rages.

On one occasion the President became so incensed that he grabbed a former aide and shook him “until his teeth chattered”.

One contemporary describe his face in anger as “lurid with majestic and terrifying wrath”.

Blue Mass pills were used widely and often ineffectually in the 19th Century as a cure for ailments including toothache, constipation, childbirth pains and depression.

Mercury is highly poisonous, and symptoms of toxicity include nausea, vomiting, dehydration and diarrhoea – a well as a violent temper.

Lincoln decided to abandon the pills at the outset of the American Civil War in 1861 because they “made him cross”.

He became renowned during the conflict for his calmness under pressure.

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Toothache and depression?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Interesting....the Mad Hatter was mad because hatters used mercury to make the hats stiff.

[scandal 951]

I think Salmon Chase was Lincoln's pill pusher.

And William Henry Seward was his co-dependent co-addict.

It was a pretty mean ghetto scene back in the day, 'bro.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I think Salmon Chase was Lincoln's pill pusher.

And William Henry Seward was his co-dependent co-addict.

It was a pretty mean ghetto scene back in the day, 'bro.