Mercury in Baby Teething Powders

This powder soothed a crying baby. It was made with mercury.

Britain, early 1900s. Every chemist sold teething powders for

sore

little gums. Many held calomel, mercury, spooned into infants week

after week. In a vulnerable few, it built up.

Hands and feet turned pink and swollen. Light grew unbearable.

Doctors named it pink disease. They could not find the cause.

For decades, no one blamed the powders.

In England, five hundred eighty-five children died in

ten years.

Only in the 1940s was it traced to the mercury.

The powders were pulled, and pink disease all but vanished.

A poison sold openly for babies' gums for decades.

An accident or a failure no one answered for?