sodium mersalyl

MERSALYL (Mersal) is an organomercury compound, mercurial diuretics that superseded by safer diuretics such as thiazides, and is hardly used anymore. Due to the idiosyncratic nature of mercury toxicity, the risk of severe disease and sudden death are unpredictable and frequently show no warning signs. Mercurial diuretics cause diuresis by reducing the reabsorption sodium in the ascending loop of Henle, thus causing more water being delivered to the distal convoluted tubule. Unfortunately, earlier physicians misconstrued hallmark symptoms of mercury poisoning such as excessive salivation as signs of mercury's efficacy, including up until the early 1960s when the use of mercurial diuretics was halted in medicine. — NCATS