Mercury became a popular remedy for a variety of physical and mental ailments during the age of "heroic medicine". It was used by doctors in America throughout the 18th century, and during the revolution, to make patients regurgitate and release their body from "impurities". Benjamin Rush was one particular well-known advocate of mercury in medicine and used calomel to treat sufferers of yellow fever during its outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. Calomel was given to patients as a purgative or cathartic until they began to salivate and was often administered to patients in such great quantities that their hair and teeth fell out.