Is mercurochrome still available? I read someplace on the "net" that it is no longer being made due to Mercury. Is that true or false?
Wasn't that the stuff our folks would put on our cuts and it would sting like crazy and make you pee your pants?
I may have dated myself again. :rolleyes:
I did find Maestro Loco's post about it to be interesting. Thanks :)
I am 65 years old, lived in this house since 1974 and I just assumed that everyone, but everyone, would have mercurochrome in the medicine cabinet. I still do, since a bottle of it lasts nearly forever. I haven't had to buy any for years. I did some checking and it seems that in the US, the FDA decided, in 1998, to ban its sale across state lines, but there is still a one manufacturer. It can still be purchased online, but I don't know how it is shipped if sale across statelines is now banned. Yes, you're right, the stuff burns like hellfire on an open wound, but as kids we thought that was a sign that the germs were being annihilated. It was also a sign of one's "manliness" if you could use it without screaming.
I wonder if the FDA has also done away with thimerasol (Merthiolate)? That was another antiseptic we used and was in every Boy Scout first aid kit. It was a mercury compound, too, and also stung like blue blazes. Mercury compounds have always been superior antifungal agents and were widely used in agriculture to prevent damping-off problems with seed corn.
I remember playing with liquid mercury as a young person. We used to rub it on pennies to turn them into "silver" pennies. As much as I was exposed to mercury with such activities, with the use of thimerasol and mercurochrome, and all the silver-mercury almalgam dental fillings I have, I wonder why I'm not confined to a looney bin. Then again, my Spanish-speaking students did dub me "Maestro loco"
Don
ML, you probably still have it in the cabinet just because it hurts so much to use it! :o :lol:
I remember that just a little bit went a long ways. It was painful to watch that little glass applicator come out of the bottle. You KNEW what you were in for. I would tighten up before it was even applied. :lol: I am such a baby that I wouldn't tell my mom when I hurt myself b/c I didn't want her to use it. She would get mad when she found out that I had gashed myself on barb wire and hadn't told her. Come to think of it, I couldn't sit down afterwards either. ;)
Ahhh the memories. It's all coming back to me now. :o :lol: