I studied in the department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University (in the good old mid nineties, before I got fat, ugly and stupid). The HPS department is situated in the old Physical Chemistry labs on Free School Lane. The labs were quite badly contaminated with mercury. Large quantities of mercury were removed from the building diring the decontamination process. A mercury detector ran in the Whipple library for a couple of hours every day. Some staff were advised to minimize the amount of time they spent in certain parts of the building. Staff with offices in the building wore mercury detectors on their lapels.
Or possibly Dex.
I just today had lunch with my phd. chemist buddy. We talked about mercury. The real danger is in breathing the fumes. Briefly touching it with hands in itself is not particularly dangerous. Even ingesting it, though not recommended, will likely not be harmful. He said that the mercury would likely just go through your system. This should somewhat aid Larry Mudd’s original post. Spilling some on a rug, then vacuuming the affected area, spreading fumes, would be far more likely to cause mercury poisioning.
A modification of this technique is still in use. A long tube with a mercury filled balloon at its end is swallowed and allowed to pass through the intestines. X-rays are taken to monitor progress of the balloon and the patient is occaisionally repositioned to allow gravity to drag the balloon in the desired direction. The tube is connected to suction as this allows decompression of the intestine distal to the obstruction. I saw this done on one patient with obstruction during my surgery rotation and it WORKED!!
At one point, I asked the attending surgeon what would happen if the balloon broke. His response was in line with what most of the posters here have said. Namely, that liquid elemental mercury does not pose much of a health hazard, as its absorption is very limited and its transit time through the GI tract is rapid.
Of course, since the guy was a surgeon, I figured he was full of shit and feared for this patient’s life the entire time the balloon was in him (about a 5 days).
In dental offices we are required to take scrap amalgam filling material and put it into a jar and then cover to material with water in order to keep down the fumes. When the jar is full, a company that specilizes separating mercury out from the rest of the amalgam will buy the jars that you have on hand. I have no idea what they do with the mercury once they get it out. I also know that there are now suction devises that will remove the amalgam and mercury from the mouth durning dental procedures to keep it all from going into the sewer system. If you have a small mercury spill in the dental office (Most unlikely these days because just about everyone uses pre-measured amalgam capsules) you cam now clean up these spills safely. Excepte from ome fumes I guess.
Also you should not be afraid to have old amalgam fillings in your mouth. It’s still a very strong safe material in the small portions that are used for fillings. However it is recommeded that you do not get all your fillings removed at once and the newer “plastic” fillings put in instead. And in some cases the new “plastic” fillings will not hold up to the same chewing pressures that good old amlagam does.
When I was about 10-12 years old (late 60s) I used to play with a bottle of mercury we had in a little shop in the basement. A favorite trick was to melt solder into a spoon mounted in a vise above a Bunsen burner, and then mix the mercury with it. Depending on the mix ratio and probably other things I didn’t understand, I could get a beautiful silver paste with the texture of toothpaste. But if I got the solder too hot before pouring the mercury in, the mercury would immediately boil off and form a bluish cloud. As I now consider how little ventillation there must have been in that room (about 100 ft^2, one door, no HVAC, no windows), I figure I must have been playing in many many times the published toxic limit for mercury vapor. Anybody know how toxic 2 ml of metallic mercury would be if you suddenly boiled it away in 800 ft^3 of air???
So, when am I supposed to feel the effects?
Gotta share this one. When I was around twelve, I came home from school and my parents weren’t home (latch-key kid). I saw this paper plate with these little silver balls on it. They looked like the silver candy things you can put on cupcakes. So I figured I’d snack on them. Well, I tried to pick them up, but they kept getting out of my grip. I continued for a few minutes, then I took the paper plate and folded it in half and was about to dump them in my mouth when my mom came in…WOW did she scream! Turns out she had broken the thermometer earlier and though I’d get a kick out of seeing the mercury. Talk about a kick…
Yup, it seems when I was a kid mercury was not poisonous yet and I played with it many times and no one made a big deal out of it. Seeing I am not entirely stupid, maybe without the exposure I would have turned out to be a great genius.
I think liquid mercury is not really dangerous and I doubt it evaporates so easily at room temperature. I never heated it so…
OTOH, the NIH says it causes all sorts of sicknesses so maybe that is the cause of my bad eyesight, general laziness, inability to have sex more than three times daily, etc.
I’ve heard of this Chinese torture where they cut the skin of the scalp and pour mercury into it. The mercury was supposed run down the person (due to gravity) behind the skin and separate the skin from the body, literally flaying the person alive. Any truth to this?
Hehe, I have a can of something here at work in Michigan, that, when you read the label, leads you to believe that it’s cancerous only in the state of California!