Elizabeth Storie: Difference between revisions

[[File:Carleton Burgan (CP 1659), National Museum of Health and Medicine (3383372640).jpg|thumb|There are no known photographs of Elizabeth Storie, but this 1862 photograph of Carleton Burgan shows the results of similar damage to the mouth and face caused by calomel.]]Elizabeth Storie was born in [[Glasgow]] in July 1818 to "poor but ''respectable'' parents", as she writes in her autobiography:<ref name="Storie1859">{{Cite book |last=Storie |first=Elizabeth |url=https://archive.org/details/autobiographyel00storgoog/ |title=he Autobiography of Elizabeth Storie, A Native of Glasgow, Who Was Subjected to Much Injustice at the Hands of Some Members of the Medical, Legal, and Clerical Professions |publisher=Richard Stobbs |year=1859 |location=Glasgow |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|2}} a cotton weaver and a cotton winder.<ref name=":0" /> When she was four she became sick with a disease she describes as "nettle-rush", which children usually recovered from in a few days. UnfortunatelyHowever, a neighbour and friend of the family who was a surgeon, Dr Falconer, insisted on treating Storie with daily doses of [[calomel]],<ref name=Storie1859></ref>{{rp|4}} a common medicine at the time that contained mercury and was a frequent cause of [[mercury poisoning]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haller |first=John S. |date=1971 |title=Samson of the Materia Medica: Medical Theory and the Use and Abuse of Calomel: In Nineteenth Century America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41108706 |journal=Pharmacy in History |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=67–76 |issn=0031-7047}}</ref> Storie became increasingly ill and after three weeks her face and mouth were black and putrid. Dr Falconer then gave her [[aquafortis]], a form of nitric acid that he forced into her mouth using a syringe. Storie writes that "the agony I suffered from this cruel operation was so dreadful that I did not know what I was doing".<ref name=Storie1859></ref>{{rp|4}} When Dr Falconer repeated this a few minutes later, Storie describes her tongue falling off, her teeth falling out and part of her jaw bone giving way.<ref name=":0" />

Storie's father sued Dr Falconer, but although the court ordered the doctor to pay £1000 in compensation, he refused to pay.<ref name=":0" /> Storie's father died soon after.<ref name=":2" />