Queen Anne's Doctor's Revenge

[Sushi Boy]

Kind of an interesting article about artifacts recovered from Blackbeard's flagship:

Gizmodo: Terrifying Medical Instruments Found on Blackbeard's Sunken Ship

With "medicine" like that, it's amazing anybody survived the 18th century.

I almost got to dive on that ship several years ago. Stoopid hurricanes.

 

[jeffh]

While the tools are interesting, I'm more curious how they came to the conclusion that this was used to inject mercury into the urethra to treat syphilis.

I mean when they got it to shore, did they all look at it scratching their heads and think:

Guy1: Hrmph, I don't know what it is
Guy2: Looks like some sort of pump
Guy1: Yeah, a pump. I can see it. Maybe they used it to pump grease into tight places in machines.
Guy2: Nah, they put mercury into it.
Guy1: Mercury? How do you figure?
Guy2: There are traces of mercury in the metal.
Guy1: Huh, mercury.
Guy2: Here's what happened. So, they used mercury to treat std's way back then, I think this is a pump they filled with mercury, injected it into the urethra which treated syphilis.
Guy1: Into the urethra? What? I think it's a grease pump
Guy2: Mercury syphilis penis pump sounds MUCH more interesting.
Guy1: Mercury syphilis penis pump it is!!!!!!!!!!