Re: was mercury used to try cure sexually transmitted diseases?

Hi Sheryl,
As far as I know, mercury was used as far back as the 18th century to 
treat syphilis. Unfortunately,many of the patients became afflicted with 
heavy metal poisoning by mercury- the neurological symptoms of which may 
have overlapped with those of neurosyphilis. There was also some work on 
looking at the effects of mercury in herpes simplex infections.  Mercury 
may have been used by ancient practitioners for other STDs as well though 
not something we would recommend today.H