Did Lincoln Have Mercury Poisoning?

Abraham Lincoln's bizarre behavior before he became president may have been due to the little blue pills he took for depression. Scientists recreated the pills and discovered they could have given him mercury poisoning.


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Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln took a little blue pill that was supposed to suppress his melancholy side. But it turns out the pill may have made him do and say bizarre things.

At one point during a debate, Lincoln reached over and picked up a man, Orlando B. Ficklin, by the coat collar and shook him "until his teeth chattered," according to a study that appears in the summer issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine.

He became so angry "his voice thrilled and his whole frame shook," the study says. Lincoln only stopped when someone, "fearing that he would shake Ficklin's head off," broke his grip.

The study says mercury poisoning may explain Lincoln's behavior.

"We wondered how a man could be described as having the patience of a saint in his 50s when only a few years earlier he was subject to outbursts of rage and bizarre behavior," said Dr. Norbert Hirschhorn, a retired public health physician, medical historian and lead author of the study.

Lincoln's Composure Explained

The study reformulated blue mass, a common anti-depressive medication of the 19th century that Lincoln took. The study shows that it would have delivered a daily dose of mercury exceeding the current Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) safety standard by nearly 9,000 times.

"Mercury poisoning certainly could explain Lincoln's known neurological symptoms: insomnia, tremor and the rage attacks," said Dr. Robert G. Feldman, an expert on heavy metal poisoning and co-author of the paper. "But what is even more important, because the behavioral effects of mercury poisoning may be reversible, it also explains the composure for which he was famous during his tenure as president."

The ingredients in "blue mass," besides mercury, included licorice root, rose water, honey, sugar and dead rose petals, according to the study. It was then compounded with an old-fashioned mortar and pestle and rolled to size on a 19th-century pill tile.

"But, in accord with 20th-century safety standards, we wore surgical gowns, gloves, masks and caps and worked with modern ventilation equipment," said Dr. Ian A Greaves, who also worked on the study. Greaves is associate professor of environment and occupational health and associate dean at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Assuring Absorption in the Body

The method of compounding the blue mass pill, dispersing the mercury into fine particles and increasing its surface area, was meant to assure its absorption into the body.

The vapor released by the two pills in the stomach would have been 40 times the safe limit set by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Health, the researchers found. The solid element of mercury absorbed from two pills would have been 750 micrograms.

The EPA indicates that only up to 21 micrograms of any form of mercury per day may safely be ingested. Someone who consumed the common dose of two to three little pills per day would have been at serious risk of mercury poisoning, the study says.

"The wartime Lincoln is remembered for his self-control in the face of provocation, his composure in the face of adversity," said Hirschhorn. "If Lincoln hadn't recognized that the little blue pill he took made him 'cross,' and stopped the medication, his steady hand at the helm through the Civil War might have been considerably less steady."

Lincoln was was assassinated in 1865.

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