 Thistlewood himself took laudanum on doctor's orders.Thistlewood and Phibba continued to suffer from venereal diseases throughout the 1760s and 1770s, and both took mercury pills in an attempt to tackle the diseases.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.