Unsurprisingly, Phibbah developed a venereal disease in 1761, and on the advice of his European doctor, Thistlewood gave her mercury pills. Thistlewood himself took laudanum on doctor's orders. He and Phibba continued to suffer from venereal diseases throughout the 1760s and 1770s, and both took mercury pills. Thistlewood apparently passed on his venereal disease to an underage slave, Mulatto Bessie, whom he had raped 11 times, but decided that most of those occasions were not to his satisfaction. He gave her mercury pills to combat her illness.