Article: Did pills poison a president? Abe Lincoln's medicine contained levels of mercury that "U" scientists and others say could have hurt him.(NEWS)

Byline: Josephine Marcotty; Staff Writer

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It is well known among historians that Abraham Lincoln had depression, and that he took blue mass, the Prozac of the day.

Now researchers at the University of Minnesota and elsewhere have concluded that blue mass pills contained so much mercury that they might have poisoned Lincoln, causing mood swings, tremors and neurological damage.

The researchers, whose article appeared today in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, re-created the pills to show that they released mercury into the body.

They found that the pills contained 9,000 times more mercury than is considered ...

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