Are you sure of your spelling.? Maybe Santal de Midy.?
quote:
Santal de Midy was imported from Paris, and even though the name suggests it could be a perfume, it was not. The bottle actually contained capsules used in treating bladder, liver and venereal problems. It took a week long date with a microfiche machine for me to find this interesting tidbit out. And from here it was all downhill. After doing a survey of the NWMP disease statistics for the years 1875-1915, I discovered that bladder and liver problems were virtually non-existent. But, venereal disease ran rampant through the fort; and syphilis was the king of them all. In A Chronicle of the Canadian West one doctor writes: "during the winter of 1874 and 1875 there was very little sickness in the troops and I cannot say that those who were sick suffered from any particular disease more than another except towards the spring the troops got pretty well inoculated with syphilis and several cases of gonorrhoea." Syphilis is a nasty disease. It can change your skeletal structure and turn your bones to mush. Any incidences of broken bones in the fort took an abnormally long time to heal. If you live long enough after contracting the disease it will eventually destroy your brain.
So, how does a little clear Santal de Midy bottle fit into all of this? The government official in charge of the public purse strings, Commissioner Herchmer, felt that the public shouldn't be paying for the indiscretions of the troops in Calgary. He ordered the men to take deductions in pay to compensate for their medical costs if they were sick with an STD. This naturally forced the men to hide their condition and seek unprofessional remedies. Santal de Midy was one of these unprofessional remedies. It came to Calgary from the Midy pharmacy in Paris via New York. In that tiny little bottle is a good example of a cure being worse than the disease. The ingredients have been likened to poison and mercury was the most prominent poison. The men suffered terribly from their treatments.
