Calomel

DESCRIPTION: The singer describes how the doctor makes regular visits and with equal regularity prescribes Calomel. He comments, "I'm not so fond of Calomel," and asks, "How many patients have you lost? How many patients have you killed Or poisoned with your Calomel?"
AUTHOR: possibly J. J. Hutchinson (see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety); Brewster's manuscript copy was dated 1832
KEYWORDS: doctor medicine humorous disease
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,SE,So)
REFERENCES (11 citations):
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 441-442, "Calomel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Arnold-FolkSongsofAlabama, p. 40, "Mister A. B." (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 334, "Calomel" (1 text)
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 91, p. 217, "Calomel" (1 text)
Brewster-BalladsAndSongsOfIndiana 69, "Calomel" (2 texts)
Stout-FolkloreFromIowa 79, pp. 100-101, "Calomel" (1 text)
Spaeth-WeepSomeMoreMyLady, pp. 203-204, "Calomel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pound-AmericanBalladsAndSongs, 54, pp. 126-127 "Calomel" (1 text)
Newman/Devlin-NeverWithoutASong, p. 222, "Calomel" (1 fragment)
DT, CALOMEL(*)
ADDITIONAL: Sarah Stage, _Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine_, 1979 (I use the 1981 Norton paperback), p. 49-50, "(Calomel)" (1 excerpt)
Roud #3770
NOTES [464 words]: Calomel (Hg₂Cl₂, or Mercury (I) chloride) was one of the first tools in the physician's repertoire that actually did what it was supposed to do. Of course, given what it was used for (a purgative), it is questionable whether it was often needed. In addition, it contains mercury, which is poisonous -- sufficiently so that its use was discouraged long before it was banned; it could be used as a poison. Indeed, the kidneys are usually the first to suffer. Heiserman, p. 280, notes that it is now used as a fungicide and insecticide -- and yet it was used on (or, rather, in) human beings!
MacInnis, p. 137. also notes that calomel was used to make tracer bullets. Fun stuff.
Stage, p. 49, says that in addition to its laxative effect (the thing the doctors used it for) it caused intense salivation and that it was particularly harmful to the tissues of the mouth, which would bleed and lose their outer surfaces, often resulting in loss of teeth as well as great pain.
As a chemical, it is so old that the origin of the name is unknown. Crosland, p. 72, reports, "the term was used to denote the white mercurous chloride, whereas the name suggests a black substance" (apparently connected with Greek μελας, melas=black). The name, according to Crosland's footnote, goes back to Turquet de Mayerne, who died in 1654 or 1655.
Emsley, p. 35, says Calomel began to be used in 1886 and was heavily used until 1919 (which, to be sure, contradicts the date in Brewster-BalladsAndSongsOfIndiana; Blum, p. 114, refers to it as an "old-time remedy," implying that it had been around for quite a while. We know that mercury salts were used for many years as a treatment for syphilis; probably calomel was one of the forms so used).
Over-use of mercury compounds could lead to a number of fatal conditions, especially involving kidney and liver failure. But the compounds were widely used as skin conditioners because they sometimes resulted in giving the skin an attractive pink color. When this condition arose naturally, e.g. from overuse of calomel, it was known as "pink disease" (Emsley, p. 41).
Despite all these uses, the main medical use of calomel was as a very high-powered laxative. The use of purgatives to treat almost any disease was common in some places and times. There was a medieval view that all illnesses were caused by poisons or toxins, so the only cure was to bleed or purge the toxin out. Of course, the usual effect of this was to kill the patient -- but that just proved that there had been poison, right? So it wasn't until 1863, e.g., that the United States Army stopped supplying its doctors with calomel (Stage, p. 62).
According to Stage, p 49, this song was sung by the Hutchinson Family. Newman/Devlin-NeverWithoutASong says J. J. Hutchinson wrote it. - RBW
Bibliography

Blum: Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Penguin, 2010
Crosland: M. P. Crosland, Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry, 1962, 1978 (I use the 2004 Dover reprint)
Emsley: John Emsley, The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison, Oxford Univeristy Press, 2005
Heiserman: David L. Heiserman, Exploring Chemical Elements and their Compounds, TAB Books, 1992
MacInnis: Peter MacInnis, Poisons (originally published as The Killer Bean of Calabar and Other Stories), 2004 (I use the 2005 Arcade paperback)
Stage: Sarah Stage, Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women's Medicine, 1979 (I use the 1981 Norton paperback)

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