• Seleni@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    As mercury softened the gums, calomel was the principal constituent of teething powders until the mid-twentieth century.

    O_o

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Not the dodgiest claim for snake oil. When radium was discovered, snake oil salesmen started putting that shit in everything from tonics to toothpaste to fucking makeup. The rationale was that brief exposure to a high radiation dose killed cells, so low dose radiation over a long period must surely kill weak diseased cells and leave healthy ones alive. They claimed curative effects from non-addictive pain relief to curing erectile dysfunction and improving your sex life by strapping radium to your ballsack. The kind of stuff that, were it still around today, Trump would hail as the ultimate COVID prevention and cure-it-all.