Mercurial salivation. Out of all the substances, mercury is the one that produces the most abundant salivation. It is a curious question why this fluid metal, which entered through the pores of the skin, determines the humors to flow by the salivary glands; here are the most plausible answers to this puzzling question.

First, it should be noted that although mercury acts on the salivary glands, it is not going to these glands rather than to the intestines. Second, if mercury is spreading everywhere, it is necessary to seek in the salivary gland tissue alone the reason for which this fluid causes an evacuation by these glands. Third, salivary gland tissue may be forced more easily than that of other channels: thus mercury dilates their ducts; the subsequent arrival of additional mercury dilates them still more; this dilation being made, humors jump in larger quantities towards the dilated places, so a large flow can occur there, while it will not occur elsewhere, and this for the same reason that when there is an unusual amount of sweating, the stomach is greatly contracted. Fourth, there is another phenomenon that happens in the use of mercury, and to which we must pay attention to explain salivation ; it is that swelling of the head often occurs. Now these swellings only take place because of obstructions that the mercury causes in the capillary vessels; these obstructions collect the blood, and the collected blood pushes saliva into the secreting pipes more strongly and in greater quantities. It is necessary to add that mercury makes a big impression on the tissue of the mouth and in neighboring parts; and as the ramifications of the nerves are very numerous and very sensitive in the mouth and on the face, irritation there will become easier and more frequent; this reason joined to those that we have just given can be used to explain the salivation caused by mercury.

It results from all these remarks that by all appearances, the virtue and energy that mercury has to produce salivation depends on two principal qualities; namely its high divisibility and its spherical shape that is found even in its small molecules.

From the considerable divisibility and the spherical figure of mercury, it follows that it can be carried to the most remote extremities of the body, that it can penetrate the mass of blood and lymph, creeping between the most closely condensed molecules of these fluids, and therefore, divide them. In addition, when the coarsest molecules of lymph are somewhat stopped at the orifices of the vessels and are mixed with globules of mercury, they are broken by the force of the contraction of the vessels, and by the continual movement of the protrusion of fluids, they are divided and finally acquire enough fluidity to pass through the smaller tubes of the body.

If we pay attention to the excretory organs of the body where overly thick lymph can go, we shall find only two kinds, namely the intestinal glands and the salivary glands. The channels of the kidneys and the skin will let only the thinnest lymph escape, because of the small vessels; which is why sudorifics are less valuable than mercury in venereal ailments because they only chase thinner lymph through the pores of the skin, and they cannot dissolve thick lymph.

But the salivary and intestinal glands can separate dense juices; therefore when employing mercury, this thick lymph leaves either via these two excretory organs, or via only one of them, depending on whether dissolved lymph spreads in the body in a greater or lesser quantity. Commonly, salivary glands shed this lymph, because having a more lively and more exquisite sense than those of the intestines, they are more strongly influenced by this tingling that this acrid lymph causes, so that they expel out the juices that they contain, and attract others; however, it is easily understood that the evacuation of this lymph made by the salivary or intestinal glands, according to the different degree of irritation, because by exciting more violent irritation, by means of a purgative, in the intestinal glands, salivation is stopped, and humor is brought out of the body through the intestines.