And then there was castor oil… ahhh, sorry, different medical problem…
Man, I was a Dental Assistant back in the day before healthcare workers wore gloves!
We scrubbed our hands with Phisohex (so mine were always raw and bleeding). We mixed the amalgam for the fillings. We put a little pellet of “stuff” and dispensed a ball or two of mercury into a little capsule which was put into a shaker. After it was shaken to make the filling, you spilled the little lump out onto a small piece of some kind of material, and hand-squeezed the excess mercury out of it (onto the counter, I might add). I would use the flat of my hand to sweep the mercury balls into a container we kept under the counter to collect the excess mercury. We used to love to play with those mercury balls. Shiney. 
Mary
I remember the iodine and the merthiolate as well. The little brown bottle was always up in the medicine cabinet. I remember slicing my thumb with an x-acto knife blade while cuttings spars for a flying model of a Piper Cub or some such plane. The blood was everywhere, the balsa wood, the wax paper; I paniced and my mom took some iodine and submerged the offending digit with the iodine. Proceded to put two or three bandages on the cut and was told to lay down and keep the thumb elevated.
We always used mercurochrome. I remember how it stung, but my parents said that meant it was working.
I remember when dentists didn’t wear gloves and I had to rinse and spit into the sink by the side of the chair. And I’m sure most of the fillings I have are mercury.
I loved those X-Ray machines. Dr Brown shoes???
The x-ray machines were great!! Buster Brown shoes?
As I remember it when I was a kid, we had Iodine and either methiolate or merchurochrome (sp?) one stung alot and one stung just a little. When we would get a cut, my mom would ask us how it happened. There were two types of accidents in her opinion, the first was when something unexpected happened. The second was a result of doing something stupid. Doing something stupid alway got the one that stung more; however, if you lied to avoid the “stupid” sting you’d get both. It was never applied to the open wound but to the skin around the wound to disinfect. The wound was alway washed with running cold water first.
BTW from age 1 to age 17, we (my three brothers and I) all got annual tetnus boosters, “just to be safe” when we got a bad cut. Yes we got cuts and stitches about that often for one reason or another. At the time, it was called being boys growing up and not a matter of ‘proper safety precautions’. They were the badges and proof of grand adventures with me and my friends, all of perfecting our story telling abilities, learning which detail required accuracy, and which required a change of … a… hm… perspective to a more elastic view of reality.
We slowly learned to be more carefull more to avoid the sore arm from the tetnus shot than from the pain of the actual injuries. Scars and injuries were respected, you never hit a guy in his stitches. But, tetnus shot swollen tricepts were favored targets of siblings for enfractions remembered and friends for good natured teasing.
and turpentine- taken by mouth, the other spring tonic
We always used to refer to it as “monkey blood.”
“Are you a-gonna put some monkey blood on that scrape?”
We had a vial of mercury that belonged to my great-great-grandfather, who had a gold mine near Placerville. We used to sneak the vial down and play with the stuff in our hands, too… Nothing like it…
Yeah, imagine my surprise to find out that so many of the common everyday practices from back then are now considered unsafe!
It’s not like it was that long ago!
M
When I was a kid, my dad had a bottle of the stuff. One day I took it to school - A teacher made me take it back home - he was afraid it might explode 
I’d prefer to avoid antibotics. My podiatrist told me to use Betadine solution (basically iodine) after my foot surgery. On my foot of course.
Yeah, imagine my surprise to find out that so many of the common everyday practices from back then are now considered unsafe!
The Vic’s Vaporub bottle has all kinds of things you’re not supposed to do with it. It says not to mix with water.
I used to always mix some with hot water and breathe the fumes when I had a cold. In fact I used some last night for my sore throat.
I’ve found the ideal cure for common sore throat: one drop of tea-tree oil in a glass of water gargled (not swallowed!). It’s frighteningly effective. (I use the thursday plantation brand - as I’ve found other brands tend to mix-in other more toxic stuff like detol). tea-tree oil has been found to be one of the most anti-bacterial substances known to man. it is astringent so should not be used on open wounds.