Therapeutic mule: the use of arsenic in the nineteenth century materia medica.

Abstract

Some years ago one of my professional brothers exultantly informed me that he had cured several cases of diabetes with quinine arsenate. He was a careful, painstaking reliable physician; his rationale was good; his results were good; my faith in quinine arsenate was good. I induced one of my relatives who was diabetic, to try the remedy. He did so faithfully and died on schedule time. (Ralph St. J. Perry, American Journal of Clinical Medicine, 1912).