# Mad Hatter -- "it's believed" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 16, 2001, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244 "2001-03-16T16:21:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/21 "2001-03-20T00:22:44Z")
Wow, a rereading of Goldwater’s article really shows it to be a very flawed argument. For example, he never mentions why Thackeray should have noted incidents of mercury poisoning/use, aside from a mention of an unnamed “description of hazards in the British hat industry”. The article makes it sound like a glaring omission, but never really explains why Thackeray would have had more reason to write about mercury poisoning in hatters than he would have had to discuss the mating habits of cornish hens. He also quotes Gardner disagreeing with him, then explains that Gardner may not know what he’s talking about, because of the fact that Thackeray never mentioned anything about mercury. He quotes Hamilton, who wrote a chapter on the hat industry in her book on industrial poisons, but dismisses her statement out of hand with the encyclopedia quote that, as DDG pointed out, doesn’t really disagree with her (and is about 110 years before Carroll anyways). And, of course, he brings up Thackeray’s silence on the issue. Most interestingly, his anonymous source doesn’t actually corroborate his theory. All that the anonymous source provides is a citation of the phrase from _Pendennis_ in 1850 and an amusing legend about the origin of the use of mercury that would seem to predate the 19th century. So basically, we have the opinion of a few experts against the curious absence of corroboration in an unnamed work by an author whose name he can’t even spell consistentindustryly wrong from sometime in the early 19th century that deals with hazards in the hat making industry. And I’ve looked through a bit of material on Thackeray online, and haven’t found any indication that he ever did write anything of the sort. ======= LATE BREAKING NEWS BULLETIN ================== OK, as I was writing this, I did more research, and apparently the work in question is _he Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions, and of Civic States and Habits of Living on Health and Longevity, with Suggestions for the Removal of Many of the Agents which Produce Disease and Shorten the Duration of Life_ by a person named C. Turner Thackrah, Esq., which was published in 1832, so I think I can quote freely from it. > [@](#): > > MILLINERS, DRESSMAKERS, AND STRAWBONNET-MAKERS are often crowded in apartments of disproportionate size, and kept at work for an improper length of time. Their ordinary hours are ten or twelve in the day, but they are confined not infrequently from five or six in the morning till twelve at night! The bent posture in which they sit tends to injure the digestive organs, as well as the circulation and the breathing. Their diet consists too much of slops, and too little of solid and nutritive food. From these causes collectively we find that girls from the country, fresh-looking and robust, soon become pale and thin. Pains in the chest, palpitation, affections of the spinal and ganglionic nerves, and defect of action in the abdominal viscera, are very general. The constant direction of the eyes also to minute work, affects these organs. Sometimes it induces slight ophthalmia, and sometimes at length a much more serious disease, palsy of the optic nerve. The remedies are obvious,–ventilation, reduction of the hours of work, and brisk exercise in the open air. The great cause of the ill-health of females who make ladies’ dresses is the lowness of their wages. To obtain a livelihood they are obliged to work in excess. Two very respectable Dress makers, who charge more than the generality, state that they earn but 12s. each per week, though they sew, on the average, fifteen hours per day. The sempstress who goes out to her work rarely receives more than a shilling a day, in addition to her board. Can ladies, humane in disposition, and prompt in their support of charitable institutions, reflect on the miserable hire they afford to the persons they employ,-- persons of their own sex,–persons often reduced by the faults or misfortunes of others from a comfortable situation in life, and sometimes even from apparent independence, to work for daily bread?" Personally, I don’t find the lack of references to mercury all that unusual. Certainly not enough to put as much faith in its omission as Goldwater did. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/22 "2001-03-20T00:32:47Z")
[http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/victcfsh.html](http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/victcfsh.html) -where I found it, it’s well down the page [http://www.std.com/Newbury/joslinhall/trade1.htm](http://www.std.com/Newbury/joslinhall/trade1.htm) -if you want to buy a copy, it’s only $375 OK, that’s about it. Apparently, this Thackrah guy keeps a pretty low profile on the internet these days. Not surprising, considering the fact that just reading the title of his book requires an act of will. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/23 "2001-03-20T02:40:54Z")
Excellent work, Watson! 😃 I believe the mystery is “solv-ed” as Inspector Clouseau would say, and if so, I am simultaneously a very happy and a very furious duck indeed. Happy at having solved the mystery, and furious that if true, the answer is so dumb. I read all the way through Chapter 27 but then I started having trouble keeping my eyes open. So I started skimming, just reading a sentence or two on each page. As it was, this still took a while. I believe I can say with 99.9% accuracy that (a) there is no visit to a hat factory in _Pendennis_, and (b) Thackeray has nothing to say _at all_ in it concerning the British hat industry. The whole thing, both volumes, all 800 or so pages of closely spaced tiny print in the Everyman’s Library edition, is about Arthur Pendennis and his trials, tribulations, love affairs, and political career. There’s nothing at all about hatmakers or the British hat industry in it. Except. And this is the “oh geez” part, the part that had me ranting and raving around the dining room when the Better Half got home from work. “Guess what **I** did all afternoon?” There is a **milliner.** A very minor character named Mrs. Fribsby inhabits the first part of the first book. She lives in the quaint village where Arthur spends his early manhood. She’s a **milliner,** for heaven’s sake. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Leonard, come over here with your anonymous buddy. Have a seat, guys, and Ducky will explain the difference between a _hatmaker_ and a \* milliner\*. A hatmaker makes the felt. He also makes the basic hat form. Wide-brimmed beaver hat, ladies bonnet (there are 2 references, at least up till Chapter 27, to ladies beaver bonnets), top hat, whatever. Hatmakers sit there all day and do nothing but make basic hat forms. Then they sell these, wholesale, to **milliners** , who (a) specialize in ladies’ hats and (b) [_pay attention, guys, here’s the important part,_] basically they only **sew.** They decorate the basic hats which they’ve bought wholesale from the hatmakers. Sometimes they sew their own hats, from felt or cloth, which someone else has made. They stock ribbons, feathers, cockades, silk flowers, all those sorts of frilly things that you can use to decorate a hat. You can buy a completed hat, decorated in the latest French fashion. Or you can buy the basic hat and the trim and do it yourself at home. Okay? Got this? The reason Thackeray doesn’t mention mercury poisoning in his book is because Mrs. Fribsby wasn’t a hatmaker making her own felt and blocking the felt into hats–she was a milliner. > **[Colonial Williamsburg | The World's Largest Living History Museum](https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/)** > > Experience the largest outdoor educational living museum in the country, through immersive and authentic 18th-century programming for our guests. > **[Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's most-trusted online dictionary](https://www.merriam-webster.com/)** > > The dictionary by Merriam-Webster is America's most trusted online dictionary for English word definitions, meanings, and pronunciation. #wordsmatter > [@](#): > > Main Entry: mil·li·ner > Pronunciation: 'mi-l&-n&r > Function: noun > Etymology: irregular from Milan, Italy; from the importation of women’s finery from Italy in the 16th century > Date: 1530 > : a person who designs, makes, trims, or sells women’s hats Trust me, guys, when it says “makes” hats, it does not mean a milliner is making her own felt. It has always been a specialized process, even back in the 14th century, whether they may or may not have been using mercury. So I am completely disgusted. Thackeray doesn’t mention mercury poisoning in his book that supposedly deals with hatmakers, and this is supposed to prove that they weren’t using mercury to make hats in the 1830s, but his book doesn’t deal with hatmakers–only a **milliner**. And she is a distinctly minor character, and it’s not the kind of book that would concern itself with the health problems of minor characters anyway, unless it’s germane to the plot, which it isn’t. Mrs. Fribsby is only there so she can tell the curate that she thinks Arthur’s widowed mother is in love with him, so the curate tells Arthur he wants to marry his mother and is thereby totally humiliated, because of course she doesn’t even know he exists. He’s her son’s tutor, for heaven’s sake. Thackrah’s girls would have been “sweat shop” workers in London, working to make mass produced off-the-shelf hats. The milliners were sewing and trimming hats, working with felt produced by feltmakers (not making felt themselves), the strawbonnet makers were of course making straw bonnets, to be trimmed. Mrs. Fribsby owned her own shop in a rural village, and she’s described as frequently reading novels in the back of the store. She is definitely not toiling away in an urban sweatshop, and she’s definitely not being exposed to mercury. While it’s possible that Goldwater’s first three mentions of “Thackrah” are in fact referring to the study, still The Anonymous Source has “Thackrah” and “Pendennis” together. > [@](#): > > He [the Anonymous Source] points out, in consonance with Gardner’s statement that the expression “mad as a hatter” was in common use in England during the middle of the 19th century, that the expression appears in Chapter 10 of Thackerah’s Pendennis, which was published in 1850. So is this a typist’s mistake, or what? Did the Anonymous Source think that Thackrah of the study was the same person who wrote _Pendennis_? Did Goldwater? I sure would like to see a copy of Goldwater’s original out-of-print book. And now I am going to get on with my life. Arthur is extricated from his affair with the semi-literate actress, goes to college, gets deeply into debt, flunks out of college, goes to London, becomes a writer, hangs out with dukes and things, goes to many many parties, and I actually don’t know whether he does or does not marry the beautiful Blanche Amory because by that point I really didn’t care. But I did get a nifty addition to my sig line. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/24 "2001-03-20T02:57:23Z")
**DDG and waterj2** Thanks for taking the time to keep me honest here. **DDG** quoted from Thackeray thus > [@](#): > > “What! you know it too?” asked the Major. > > “Know it! don’t I? and many more too. We were talking about it at mess, yesterday, and chaffing Derby Oaks–until he was as mad as a hatter. Know Sir Derby Oaks? We dined together, and we went to the play: we were standing at the door smoking, I remember, when you passed into dinner.” So here we have Thackeray using the phrase _mad as a hatter_ in 1849, and the meaning is _clearly_ that the phrase meant someone was _angry_. Not _deranged_. This is how the term most likely was meant at that time. _upset and angry_. **waterj2** I can’t thank you enough for discovering that there was a Thackrah. The coincidence of his name with the fact that Thackeray used _mad as a hatter_ is spooky. I would love to read the original work to see if there was indeed more detail about the fur hat industry. I’m sure there was. And if he indeed went into such depth in his discussions, why would he not mention hatters problems with mercury? I would still be up for someone finding the oldest printed source for _Danbury shakes_. Lastly, the Thackrah work is available in reprint: > [@](#): > > 1. Thackrah, Charles Turner The Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions On Health and Longevity > Science History Publications MA 1985 F/VG++. Book is a very nice clean copy, like new, gold stamping on spine. Dustjacket is rubbed at spine ends and corners, lightly soiled. 1st Thus . Bookseller Inventory # R0088110 > Price: US$ 45.00 convert currency > Presented by [alottabooks.com](http://alottabooks.com), Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A. > order options from [abebooks](http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/BookSearch), the best on-line consortium of used bookdealers, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/25 "2001-03-20T04:56:26Z")
OK, I’m calling in the help of the [hatsuk.com](http://hatsuk.com) bulletin board (that’s hats-UK, not Hat Suk). Also, here’s a link to the Snopes page on the subject: [http://www.snopes2.com/spoons/fracture/hatter.htm](http://www.snopes2.com/spoons/fracture/hatter.htm) OK, so the whole Thackrah/Thackeray thing was a bit of a mixup, presumably on Goldwater’s part. Looking up more about the guy it seems he was pretty well known as being the father of occupational health in Britain. Also, he founded Leeds University School of Medicine. And it looks like his book can be had for a reasonable price. What is less certain is whether the book dealt with anyone who actually made the felt, or just sewed the hats. The web doesn’t seem to have anything on when the term danbury shakes was first noticed. I think the Thackeray quote is less than clear in implying anger. I could also easily interpret it as implying fits, such as would be suffered by someone afflicted with mercury poisoning. The Snopes link gives Thomas Chandler Morton’s _Clockmaker_ as the first known usage of the phrase. Perhaps DDG might be willing to read through that if I ask really nicely. I’m still leaning towards the mercurism theory, as it seems rather improbable that people who appeared mad would happen to also be commonly referred to as mad due to sheer coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/26 "2001-03-20T14:51:56Z")
To be perfectly fair to Goldwater, I’m beginning to think the whole mixup stems from the typist’s error in typing that fourth “Thackerah”. In touch typing, “h” and “y” are typed with the same finger. After a good night’s sleep (during which I dreamed incessantly of galloping mail coaches and people drinking punch out of tumblers), I think what happened was that I saw the words “Thackrah”, “Thackerah”, and “Pendennis” and immediately jumped to the conclusion that Goldwater (and/or his Anonymous Source) was the one who was mixed up. However, it still doesn’t answer the question of why it’s so important to Goldwater that they weren’t using mercuric nitrate in feltmaking until the late 19th century. Is he maybe feeling threatened, in his position as scientist, by the fact that people used a demonstrably dangerous substance for centuries with Science not realizing it, and giving a warning? Possibly still available from Science History Publications. [http://www.shpusa.com/home.html?114,48](http://www.shpusa.com/home.html?114,48) > [@](#): > > Thackrah, Charles Turner, > The Effects of Arts, Trades, and Professions on Health and Longevity (2ed., 1832) > Preface by Saul Benison > 1986, ISBN 0-88135-075-3, $15 I’ll volunteer to read it if somebody will buy it and mail it to me. 😃 At Water’s link, what little description there is of what’s actually in Thackrah’s book. > [@](#): > > Meiklejohn, A. The Life, Work and Times of Charles Turner Thackrah, Surgeon and Apothecary of Leeds (1795-1833). Edinburgh; E & S Livingstone Ltd:1957. Meiklejohn’s biography and notes on Thackrah are extremely valuable and informative. This edition also includes a reprinting of the enlarged 2nd edition of Thackrah’s most important book, “The Effects of Arts, Trades and Professions on Health and Longevity”. Thackrah’s work, first published in 1831, was “the first systematic publication in Great Britain on industrial disease and its prevention”. . > > Thackrah, C. Turner. The Effects of the Principal Arts, Trades, and Professions, and of Civic States and Habits of Living, on Health and Longevity: with a particular reference to the trades and manufacturers of Leeds: and Suggestions for the removal of many of the agents, which produce disease, and shorten the duration of life. Philadelphia; Office of the Journal of Health:1831. 2nd edition. The American edition of an English examination of trade-related diseases.The author discusses a great variety of trades one by one, and explains their hazards. So Goldwater says that since Thackrah didn’t mention mercury poisoning, this proves that they weren’t using mercury to treat felt in the 1830s. Possible reasons why Thackrah (the real one) may not have mentioned mercury poisoning in his survey of the 1830s British hat industry. 1. Maybe he was only talking about milliners, not feltmakers or hatmakers. How many, and which, industries did he cover? 2. Maybe they didn’t understand yet that mercuric nitrate had toxic fumes. They may have thought that since you didn’t immediately fall over dead upon sniffing mercuric nitrate, that meant it wasn’t toxic. 3. Maybe back in the 1830s in Britain they weren’t concerned with _invisible_ air pollution yet. There was an increasing emphasis overall on fresh air, good ventilation, and exercise (see Thackrah’s advice to the girls to get more fresh air), but maybe they didn’t really understand that something you couldn’t see or smell in the air could actually be bad for you. They could legislate against bad _smells_ because those are hard to miss, but invisible, odorless fumes might have escaped their notice. Here’s a website about French air pollution laws in the early 19th century. [http://www.le.ac.uk/hi/teaching/papers/poll.html](http://www.le.ac.uk/hi/teaching/papers/poll.html) > [@](#): > > The initial classification of 1810 listed 65 industries, but that number was to be rapidly added to with successive updatings and already by 1815 it had reached 167. It covered everything from blast furnaces to piggeries, from lime kilns to cheese stores. What’s more, the scope was even wider than at first appears because although the law was ostensibly concerned with noxious odours, in practice from the very beginning it covered an array of other hazards too: > > distilleries for their fire risk > > the manufacture of matches for fear of explosion > > gold beaters because they were noisy > > the retting of hemp and flax on grounds of water pollution > > hat makers because they produced dust > > menageries, where the specified danger was the escape of animals from their cages. The thing that pops out at me from this list (other than the mention of hatmakers) is that all of these things that have attracted official attention are either noisy or smelly, or obviously dangerous. The fumes from mercuric nitrate, AFAIK, aren’t particularly smelly, at least not in the sense of the whole neighborhood where the hatmakers live being full of the smell of what they’re using to make felt. Hatmakers _are_ mentioned as annoying their neighbors because of the dust they produce. So maybe Thackrah doesn’t mention mercuric nitrate simply because he wasn’t aware of it. Maybe it was just “the stuff the hatmakers brush on the felt”. Re the word “mad”. Yeah, Sam, you’re right, I thought it sounded like “angry”, too. I was interested to notice, as I waded through this thing, that the word occurred a number of other times, but always in the context of “crazy”. > [@](#): > > Chapter 12: “She brought in a pair of ex-white satin shoes with her, which she proposed to rub as clean as might be with bread-crumb; intending to go mad with them upon next Tuesday evening in Ophelia, in which character she was to reappear on that night.” > > Chapter 14: “He said afterwards that he wondered he had not taken a pistol to shoot her, so mad was he with love, and rage, and despair; and had it not been for his mother at home, to whom he did not speak about his luckless condition, but whose silent sympathy and watchfullness greatly comforted the simple half-heartbroken fellow, who knows but he might have done something desperate, and have ended his days prematurely in front of Chatteris gaol?” [_you’re supposed to read this with tongue firmly in cheek_] > > Chapter 15: “And so indeed it was; the whole society there had the legend–at the news-room, at the milliner’s, at the shoe-shop, and the general warehouse at the corner of the market; at Mrs. Pybus’s, at the Glanders’s, [\*remember, Thackeray’s getting paid by the word 😃 \*]at the Honourable Mrs. Simcoe’s _soiree_, at the Factory; nay, through the mill itself the tale was current in a few hours, and young Arthur Pendennis’s madness was in every mouth.” You begin to see why I stopped at Chapter 27. 😃 [_…and isn’t it interesting to note that evidently the problem of angry teenagers possibly getting a gun and shooting someone isn’t a new one…_] ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/27 "2001-03-20T15:16:04Z")
And of course, since I have about six million things to do this morning, I am going to sit here and look things up. Anybody out there have an Oxford English Dictionary? It’s my understanding that the use of the word “mad” to mean “angry” is an American usage. Can anybody find when it first began to be used like that? From my Webster’s Deluxe Unabridged 2nd edition (all 20 pounds of it–oof): > [@](#): > > Mad: [ME _maad, mad,_ mad; AS _gemaed, gemad,_ mad, senseless, foolish] > > 1. mentally ill; insane; crazy. > 2. frenzied; wildly excited; frantic; as, _mad_ with fear. > 3. showing or resulting from lack of reason; foolish and rash; senseless; unwise. > 4. blindly and foolishly enthusiastic or fond; infatuated; as, she’s _mad_ about him. > 5. wildly gay; hilarious. > 6. having rabies; as, a _mad_ dog. > 7. angry; enraged, furious (often with _at_). [Colloq.] > > Syn.–crazy, delirious, distracted, frantic, frenzied, insane, raging, rabid, angry. So, six out of seven definitions have it as “crazy”, only one has it as “angry”, and that one is a colloquial one. So, maybe Thackeray meant that they teased Derby Oaks so much that he “got crazy”, not “got angry”. OTOH, Merriam-Webster has “angry” at Number 3 on the list. > **[Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's most-trusted online dictionary](https://www.merriam-webster.com/)** > > The dictionary by Merriam-Webster is America's most trusted online dictionary for English word definitions, meanings, and pronunciation. #wordsmatter > [@](#): > > Main Entry: 1mad > Pronunciation: 'mad > Function: adjective > Inflected Form(s): mad·der; mad·dest > Etymology: Middle English medd, madd, from Old English gem[AE]d, past participle of (assumed) gem[AE]dan to madden, from gemAd silly, mad; akin to Old High German gimeit foolish, crazy > Date: before 12th century > 1 : disordered in mind : INSANE > 2 a : completely unrestrained by reason and judgment \ b : incapable of being explained or accounted for \ > 3 : carried away by intense anger : FURIOUS \ \ > 4 : carried away by enthusiasm or desire \ \ > 5 : affected with rabies : RABID > 6 : marked by wild gaiety and merriment : HILARIOUS > 7 : intensely excited : FRANTIC \ > 8 : marked by intense and often chaotic activity : WILD \ But still, seven out of eight definitions mean “crazy”, and only one means “angry”. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2001, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/28 "2001-03-20T16:33:50Z")
Only in the modern era have we tried to classify types of mental illness, and get away from words like “mad” and “crazy.” My WAG would be that the two meanings of “mad” were not all that different – getting angry, turning red in the face, frothing at the mouth, sputtering, yelling, etc would all be symptoms of both mad/angry and mad/loony. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/29 "2001-03-21T15:15:44Z")
As C. S. Lewis points out in _Studies in Words,_ one must always be careful to distingish between the word’s meaning and the speaker’s meaning. As he explains, if I say, “Take away all this rubbish,” I may mean by “this rubbish” a pile of old newspapers, but that doesn’t mean that “rubbish” means “newspapers”, or even that I think it does. Similarly, just because Thackeray is using the word “mad” to describe an angry person, that doesn’t mean that he is using the word “mad” to mean “angry”. ---
**Author:** ![Axel\_Wheeler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Axel\_Wheeler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Axel_Wheeler)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/30 "2001-03-21T18:24:21Z")
There is much debate about whether people are poisoned by mercury today; it will certainly be difficult to assess whether hatters were actually poisoned by mercury in the 1800s. Here are some lines of argument: Actual hatter poisoning -\> public perception of hatters as poisoned by mercury -\> public perception of hatters as mad Actual hatter poisoning -\> public perception of hatters as mad (but no one knows the cause of the madness) No poisoning -\> public perception of hatters as poisoned by mercury (because of mercury scare) -\> public perception of hatters as mad No poisoning but other odd hatter behavior (see below) -\> public perception of hatters as mad And then the compound theories: A few hatters poisoned but mostly other odd behavior -\> public perception of hatters as poisoned -\> public perception of hatters as mad A few hatters poisoned but mostly other odd behavior -\> public perception of hatters as mad, but no one knows why I don’t think we can either rule out or accept any of these alternates. We just don’t have data. And this makes us mad as a hatter, because with a character as famous as the Hatter there ought to be some scientific analysis of why hatters were perceived as mad. Yet there is a void. I am beginning to suspect that whether or not mercury actually made hatters mad, the public perception of madness did not seem to involve mercury. The online version of OED gives me the impression that the phrase “Mad as a hatter” may have originally had more to do with the notion that hatters were loners than that they used mercury. They may have worked in shops (as opposed to factories) but in a back room where there was peace and quiet. The women in the front of the store (these would be the milliners, according to previous posts?) would sew the exterior of the hats together while the hatter - presumably a man - stayed in the back and made the forms. So, the personable and chatty women in the front might have considered the hatter to be an oddball. This is not surprising if the techniques they used (the bow, etc.) were indeed as odd as has been described. Anyway, here are two of OED’s early references for “Mad as a hatter”: > [@](#): > > 1837-40 HALIBURTON Clockm. (1862) 109 Sister Sall…walked out of the room, as mad as a hatter. > > 1857 HUGHES Tom Brown II. iii, He’s a very good fellow, but as mad as a hatter. These both predate Alice in Wonderland, although it might still have been a fairly new expression for Alice and Lewis, so people at the time ought to have had some idea why hatters were perceived that way… but definition #2 in OED is: > [@](#): > > 1. One who lives or works alone, orig. a miner; a solitary bushman. Austral. and N.Z. [Cf. hat covers his family in HAT n. 5c.] > > 1853 J. ROCHFORT Adv. Surveyor viii. 66 The Bendigo diggings are suitable for persons working singly… Such persons are > humorously called ‘hatters’. > > 1864 ROGERS New Rush II. 49 Some days ago a sturdy hatter joined. > > 1865 B. L. FARJEON Shadows on Snow II. 76, I was working as a ‘hatter’. > > 1869 R. B. SMYTH Goldf. Victoria Gloss. 613 Hatter, one who works alone…The hatter leads an independent life, and nearly always holds a claim under the bye~laws. > > 1889 E. WAKEFIELD N.Z. after 50 Yrs. vi. 165 Miners who work alone are called ‘hatters’, one explanation of the term being that they frequently go mad from the solitude of their claim away in the bush, exemplifying the proverb ‘As mad as a hatter’. Of course, these Australian references are after the 1840 reference above, so it’s possible that they just picked up the popular usage. Hatter as loner may thus be secondary to hatter as nut. So in view of the fact the hatter’s methods were clearly odd, and that it was indeed a lonesome job, and that we have still found no evidence that mercury poisioning was in fact known among them, I tentatively suggest that “Mad as a hatter” probably has nothing to do with mercury. Another way of putting it is: given the actual job hatters did, only a madman would decide to spend his life doing it. BTW: Here are some early references to “mad” itself. It always seems to imply insanity, even when it means angry. > [@](#): > > 1390 GOWER Conf. I. 46 For certes such a maladie…It myghte make a wisman madd. Ibid. II. 144 And if…hir list noght to be gladd, He berth an hond that sche is madd. > > c1440 Promp. Parv. 319/1 Madde, or wood, amens, demens, furiosus. > > 1489 CAXTON Faytes of A. III. xx. 213 Whyche duke or erle happeth to wex madde so that al alone as a fole he gothe renning by wodes and hedges. > > 1500-20 DUNBAR Poems xix. 12 Gife I be sorrowfull and sad, Than will thay say that I am mad. > > 1590 SHAKES. Com. Err. II. ii. 11 Wast thou mad, That thus so madlie thou didst answere me? > > 1590 SWINBURNE Treat. Test. 37 They did see him hisse like a goose or barke lyke a dogge, or play such other parts as madfolks vse to doo. > > 1611 BIBLE John x. 20 And many of them said, He hath a deuill, and is mad, why heare ye him? > > 1664-5 PEPYS Diary 25 Jan., He told me what a mad freaking fellow Sir Ellis Layton hath been, and is, and once at Antwerp was really mad. A mad freaking fellow!!! In 1664/5??!! I love it! “That Cecil Adams is such a mad freaking fellow!” Anyway to summarize: we (some of us, anyway, myself included) want the madness of hatters to derive from mercury poisoning, but there are plenty of other reasons for the popular perception of their madness and no evidence of poisoning. A possibly salvation for the mercury theory: Did hatters actually get poisoned by mercury, and thus add to the already popular perception of their madness? How much mercury was in that solution? How much is needed to drive someone mad? Could simple lack of ventilation cause concentrations to build up to levels potentially causing madness. One last thing: Is it possible that “mad as a hatter” is simply a reference to the absurdity of women’s hats at the time? The appearance of the phrase seems so sudden and widespread; can anyone look up the history of women’s hats for a possible explanation? I don’t suppose they got bizarre around, oh, 1840 or so? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/31 "2001-03-22T15:15:37Z")
Careful! Just because we don’t have a contemporary source saying, “Hatters are mad because of mercury poisoning,” doesn’t mean we don’t have contemporary sources saying, “Hatters are uncommonly inclined to be mad,” and “Hatters use mercury.” As far as I can tell, nobody’s looked. ---
**Author:** ![Axel\_Wheeler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Axel\_Wheeler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Axel_Wheeler)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/32 "2001-03-22T16:25:02Z")
Yes, when I say we have a lack of data, I mean we in this group. Someone may well have the data. My point is that with dangerous materials like mercury and lead there can be a tendency even for reputable historians to jump to the conclusion that these were responsible for various social ills. Maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. One way this can happen is that historians raise it as a possiblility and others repeat it as fact. I mean, this happens even in relatively current events: the debates over Gulf War Syndrome and breast implants could be examples of erroneous conclusions based on possibilities, or they may be real physical effects. But I can easily imagine an historian suggesting that mercury may have been the cause of hatter madness, and then others repeating it as fact. So I ask: 1. What evidence is there that hatters in the 1800s were actually poisoned by mercury? 2. What evidence is there that people in the 1800s believed hatters were poisoned by mercury? I see modern references to “hatter’s shakes” having been caused by mercury, but if hatters were presumed to be poisoned by mercury at the time (because they were crazy and used mercury), then such an expression might have a popular source, rather than a medical one. For question 1 above we almost got the answer in that Thackrah piece; it was just not about the hatters themselves. We must search for more proof! (“We” meaning “you”, that is. I have to get back to work before I get fired.) Meanwhile, maligned hatters of the world, unite! ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/33 "2001-03-22T19:21:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Is it possible that “mad as a hatter” is simply a reference to the absurdity of women’s hats at the time? The appearance of the phrase seems so sudden and widespread; can anyone look up the history of women’s hats for a possible explanation? I don’t suppose they got bizarre around, oh, 1840 or so? Here’s a page of tons of links to Victorian fashion. [http://www.costumes.org/pages/victlinks.htm](http://www.costumes.org/pages/victlinks.htm) The short answer to your question is “no”. Generally speaking, women’s hats in the 1830s and 1840s were just simple bonnets and variations on bonnets and little caps. It wasn’t until the 1870s that hats began to get really elaborate, and during the 1890s of course was when you got the really huge hats, with the dead birds on them, etc. Also, the word “hatter” has always meant quite specifically the one who made the hats, not the one who wore them. > [@](#): > > 1. What evidence is there that hatters in the 1800s were actually poisoned by mercury? Well, in spite of what Leonard Goldwatter might think, there is evidence that hatters were using mercuric nitrate to make felt in the early 1800s, and even in earlier centuries. And if they were using mercuric nitrate, then according to OSHA (see below), if they weren’t wearing all kinds of protective clothing, including respirators, then yes, they were being poisoned. > [@](#): > > 1. What evidence is there that people in the 1800s believed hatters were poisoned by mercury? Zero. People didn’t “get it” until the 20th century. They used the phrases “hatter’s shakes” and “mad as a hatter” simply because they observed that hatters’ hands shook, and that hatters sometimes behaved oddly. > [@](#): > > …the public perception of madness did not seem to involve mercury… Right, because they didn’t “get it”. How could an odorless, invisible vapor make people go crazy? Remember, this was an era that thought diseases like cholera and malaria were caused by bad-smelling air, not by bacteria or blood parasites. When they drained swamps or provided clean drinking water, they were unwittingly removing the real causes of malaria or cholera, but they thought it was just that the bad smells were gone. This was also an era where a surprisingly large number of people thought that what we would call clinical insanity was actually caused by demon possession. > [@](#): > > Did hatters actually get poisoned by mercury, and thus add to the already popular perception of their madness? The public perceived them as mad. The reason they appeared mad was because they were suffering from chronic mercury poisoning. > [@](#): > > The online version of OED gives me the impression that the phrase “Mad as a hatter” may have originally had more to do with the notion that hatters were loners than that they used mercury. They may have worked in shops (as opposed to factories) but in a back room where there was peace and quiet. The women in the front of the store (these would be the milliners, according to previous posts?) would sew the exterior of the hats together while the hatter - presumably a man - stayed in the back and made the forms. I’d sure like to see the actual OED cite for that. I don’t see any evidence anywhere that refers to the hatmaking trade being a particularly lonely one. The Australian usage of “hatter” would be in the sense of “crazy person”, as in “you’d have to be crazy to be a miner out there”. As far as hatmaking being a “lonesome job”, actually it was a big industry, not a “cottage industry”. The picture you paint here, of the solitary hatter living in the back while his wife trimmed hats in the front, is historically inaccurate. Hatmaking was a huge industry, like brewing or baking or butchering, and making felt is a hairy, steamy, dusty, messy business. No way could feltmaking have taken place in the back of a genteel milliner’s shop. The hatmakers would occupy a big building with workrooms and huge vats for soaking and steaming the felt, and machinery for pressing the felt into place on the hat forms, where their incessant pounding of mass quantities of felt raised clouds of dust and led to protests by their neighbors (see the French air pollution cite, above). If you can get hold of a copy of Nollet’s _L’Art de Faire des Chapeaux_, it has some wonderful illustrations of what feltmaking looked like in 1765. Colin McDowell’s _Hats: Status, Style and Glamour_ says: > [@](#): > > A workman familiar with the scenes pictured in [Nollet] would feel perfectly at home in a modern hat factory. None of the early usages of “mad as a hatter” sound like “mad as a crazy loner”. “She walked out of the room like a crazy loner…” Nope, doesn’t work for me. > [@](#): > > …there ought to be some scientific analysis of why hatters were perceived as mad. Coming right up. But first, here is an example of what people meant by “mad”. The story of Boston Corbett, the man who shot John Wilkes Booth. [http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton/Lincoln32.html](http://members.aol.com/RVSNorton/Lincoln32.html) Okay. How toxic is Mercuric Nitrate? It’s pretty bad. OSHA on mercury. [http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/phs8916.html](http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/phs8916.html) About mercuric nitrate. > **[Avantor®](https://www.avantorsciences.com/site/)** > > Avantor® is a global manufacturer and distributor of high-quality products, services and solutions to professionals in the life sciences and advanced technology industries. The official Material Safety Data Sheet. [http://hazard.com/msds/mf/old/fish/dev/fa9/918](http://hazard.com/msds/mf/old/fish/dev/fa9/918) > [@](#): > > How much is needed to drive someone mad? Could simple lack of ventilation cause concentrations to build up to levels potentially causing madness? Answer #1–not much. Answer #2–yes, certainly. Effects of mercury poisoning (mercurialism) on the nervous system. [http://www.worldmedicus.com/servlet/Controller/$700604484f260000.sj\_viewd](http://www.worldmedicus.com/servlet/Controller/%24700604484f260000.sj_viewd) / > [@](#): > > Acrodynia > A condition seen primarily in childhood, most often resulting from chronic exposure to MERCURY COMPOUNDS which may result in ENCEPHALOPATHY and POLYNEUROPATHY. Clinical features include pain, swelling and pinkish discoloration of the fingers and toes, weakness in the extremities, extreme irritability, HYPERESTHESIA, and alterations in level of consciousness. (From Menkes, Textbook of Child Neurology, 5th ed, p603) > > Neurologic disorders associated with exposure to inorganic and organic forms of MERCURY. Acute intoxication may be associated with gastrointestinal disturbances, mental status changes, and PARAPARESIS. Chronic exposure to inorganic mercury usually occurs in industrial workers, and manifests as mental confusion, prominent behavioral changes (including psychosis), DYSKINESIAS, and NEURITIS. Alkyl mercury poisoning may occur through ingestion of contaminated seafood or grain, and its characteristic features include POLYNEUROPATHY; ATAXIA; vision loss; NYSTAGMUS; and DEAFNESS. (From Joynt, Clinical Neurology, 1997, Ch20, pp10-15) Ducky’s Glossary (with some assistance from _Tabor’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary_😃 : Encephalopathy: any dysfunction of the brain. Usually means neuronal degeneration and edema (swelling). Polyneuropathy: term applied to any disorder or affection of peripheral nerves. Same thing as multiple neuritis. Peripheral nerves: Any nerve which connects the brain or spinal cord with peripheral receptors or effectors. Hyperesthesia: Unusual sensibility to sensory stimuli, such as pain or touch. Paraparesis: Partial paralysis affecting the lower limbs. Dyskinesia: Defect in voluntary movement. Neuritis: Inflammation of a nerve or nerves. Ataxia: Muscular incoordination, especially that manifested when voluntary muscular movements are attempted. Nystagmus: Constant, involuntary, cyclical movement of the eyeball. Movement may be in any direction. So if you’re suffering from a non-fatal case of chronic mercury poisoning, your arms and legs tremble. You stumble a lot. You have mysterious aches and pains. You have mood swings, verging on outright psychosis. You’re constantly irritable, and extremely sensitive to touch–people tap you on the shoulder and you jump a mile. And worst of all, your eyeballs roll around uncontrollably in your head. Your neighbors say of you, “He’s crazy”. After your neighbors have seen other people with these same symptoms, and most of these people seem to be hatmakers, they start saying, “He’s a hatter–what did you expect? Hatters are crazy.” And, you know, I went looking for the answer to “when did they stop using mercury to make felt” and the answer is, they haven’t. [http://db.rtknet.org/E1530T29](http://db.rtknet.org/E1530T29) > [@](#): > > IDENTIFICATION > Mercuric Nitrate is a white or yellowish powder. It is used in > making other chemicals, in felt manufacture and in making Mercury > fulminate. [http://www.oehha.ca.gov/air/acute\_rels/pdf/HgA.pdf](http://www.oehha.ca.gov/air/acute_rels/pdf/HgA.pdf) > [@](#): > > Mercuric nitrate is used in the manufacture of felt, and in the manufacture of bronze (HSDB, 1994) [http://www.geocities.com/toothk/environment.html](http://www.geocities.com/toothk/environment.html) > [@](#): > > Mercury Usage and discharges > Alloy; anatomical preparations; aniline red; atomic shields; barometers; batteries (mercury oxide); bronzing; canton tube; carbon black manufacturing; cardiac catherization syringe; catalysts; cement mining; chemical manufacture; china ware and porcelain; coal; coke mining; contaminated soils; cosmetics; cremation; dental practices; discharges from STP’s; dyeing (color); electrical; embalming; engraving & embossing; explosives; **felt hats** ; finger print powder; fluorescent lamps; fossil fuel power station; fuchsin; fuel cells; fungicides; gilding; glass globe coating; gold mining; gyroscopes; hardening processes; hazardous waste; hospitals; incineration of biomedical waste; inorganic chemical sector; insecticides; ion engines; iron and steel sector; jewelry; laboratory equipment; lamps; landfill gas; lime manufacturing; manicipal solid waste incineration; manometers; mercury-arc rectifiers; mercury vapor boilers; metal mining; Miller-Abbott tube; mining; motors; municipal sewage treatment plants; nuclear coolants; organic chemical sector; oscillators; paint; phanotron; pharmaceuticals; photography; pigments; preservatives; printing trades; pulp and paper; radar; radio; seed dressings; sewage sludge incineration; shooting galleries; silvering mirrors; slimicides; switches; taxidermy; thermometers; thyratron; turboalternators; welding; wood preservatives; vermicides. And the answer to the question “when did they stop making hats out of beaver felt?” is, “They didn’t.” [http://www.right-angle.com/bail5xauscow.html](http://www.right-angle.com/bail5xauscow.html) > [@](#): > > 5X Beaver Fur Felt. Cattleman crown with a 4" brim. Matching color leather hat band with star conchos and contrasting braid trim. Color - Black. > From the Beaver Felt cowboy hat collection by Bailey Hats. [http://www.montanasyt.com/mww9.htm](http://www.montanasyt.com/mww9.htm) > [@](#): > > These are the very finest 100% beaver felt hats made in America. Not 20 or 50, but 100% beaver felt. [http://www.cowboyhatstore.com/stetsonfelt\_catalog/stetsonfelt8.htm](http://www.cowboyhatstore.com/stetsonfelt_catalog/stetsonfelt8.htm) > [@](#): > > Style: CH-057 El Rey (The King) > Brim: 3 1/2" or 4" > Crown: 5" > Colors: Silver Belly, Black, White, Mist Gray > Sizes: 6 5/8- 7 3/4 > Material: Genuine Beaver 200X > List Price: $1600.00 Yes, that’s _sixteen hundred dollars._ :eek: [http://www.cow-boy.com/roundup1.htm](http://www.cow-boy.com/roundup1.htm) > [@](#): > > Wool felt is getting better, but fur is still preferable, and beaver content improves the durability. > > X’s vary from maker to maker, and they do not necessarily indicate a specific percentage of beaver fur. In the 1950s buyers thought a XXX beaver Stetson had 30% beaver fur. The ten-X model was pure beaver and retailed for $100. > > However, you might see the following stamped on a sweat band: “XXXXX,” “Beaver Hats,” and “One Hundred Percent Imported Coney Fur.” What does that mean? The X’s mean nothing. “Beaver Hats” is the brand. “Coney Fur” tells the tale. Coney means rabbit. So it’s a hat made of rabbit-fur felt. Unless it says “Beaver,” don’t assume Xs mean beaver fur. “XXX quality” and similar phrases don’t count. To determine its quality, you must feel felt. Feel felt enough, and you can tell the difference between the good stuff (fine, soft, smooth) and the not-so-good (coarse, hard, rough). Like I said, nothing holds its shape in the rain quite like beaver felt. If you want an expensive dress cowboy hat that’ll keep looking nice, you go with beaver. So that answers the question of who’s buying those Ohio beaver pelts–they’re not being shipped off to some dang fur-happy foreigners, they’re being made into All-American Cowboy Hats. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/34 "2001-03-22T19:53:21Z")
Here’s the Mad Hatter. See his eyes rolling around in his head? What’s he looking at? Nothing. The March Hare and Alice are looking at each other, but the Hatter’s eyes aren’t looking at anything at all. Tenniel is portraying what he saw in hatters, the random eye movements. [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/rgs/alice25a.gif](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/rgs/alice25a.gif) In smaller versions, the tilt of the Hatter’s head towards Alice makes it look likes he’s looking at her. [http://www.math.umn.edu/~rudnaya/books/Alice1.html](http://www.math.umn.edu/~rudnaya/books/Alice1.html) But if you expand it, so you can see more detail, he’s not. [http://www.math.umn.edu/~rudnaya/books/alice25a.gif](http://www.math.umn.edu/~rudnaya/books/alice25a.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/35 "2001-03-22T22:59:05Z")
For once, I’ve got to say I find snopes less than convincing. > [@](#): > > Phrases such as _mad as a March hare, mad as a buck, mad as Maybutter,_ and _mad as a wet hen_ are older than _mad as a hatter_, leaving open the conclusion that hatter is but a variation of an existing term. (Interestingly, these other phrases pull in different directions, with _mad as a March hare_ signifying odd or eccentric behavior, while _mad as a wet hen_ characterizes anger.) Sorry, I don’t buy it. In order for “mad as a hatter” to be just a variation on an existing term, one would need to show some connection between the other variations, and show a tendency to fill in the gaps with new words. Given the point in parenthesis about the different variations on meaning of “mad”, I think that works counter to the assertion. That suggests to me independent generation of phrases that appear similar because of the use of the word “mad”, and the ambiguity by its double meaning. > [@](#): > > Moreover, there exists a possibility Carroll was unaware either of the mercury connection to the existing saying or was entirely unaware of the saying itself and believed he had coined it himself. How do they justify that assertion? So what if Carroll knew Theophilus Carter, and intended to lampoon him a bit as the hatter? What keeps Carroll from doing a double word game, and putting a Mad Hatter (because hatters are all crazy) into the story, and then depicting this hatter as Carter? In fact, in the very next paragraph they say > [@](#): > > He loved to twist words this way and that, **and encoding double and triple meanings into his work** was for him part of the fun. His Mad Hatter could therefore be a caricature of Theophilus Carter, a real person of his acquaintance, while his mad as a hatter could have been a twist on the pre-existing saying, mad as a March hare. [bolding mine] Making a play on the phrase “mad as a March hare”? But he already has a March Hare. So he’s also making a new play on the March hare? That doesn’t sound credible. Why would he make 2 mad characters both based on “mad as a March hare”? It has already been shown that the phrase “mad as a hatter” was common - snopes cites two previous uses and claims as much. Yet somehow Carroll comes up with exactly the same phrase based not on a common characteristic (madders act crazy because of mercury poisoning) but purely by word play? And the mad atter as a venomous snake is even sketchier. How can “mad as a hatter” be _both_ a substitution for “mad as a March hare” and “mad as an adder”? One means crazy, the other means poisonous. It doesn’t connect. Sorry, this one just doesn’t hold up to me. samclem said: > [@](#): > > [from Thackaray]“Know it! don’t I? and many more too. We were talking about it at mess, yesterday, and chaffing Derby Oaks–until he was as mad as a hatter.” [snip] > > So here we have Thackeray using the phrase _mad as a hatter_ in 1849, and the meaning is clearly that the phrase meant someone was angry. Not _deranged_. It’s hardly clearly meaning angry. It could easily mean crazy, in the sense that “he’s driving me crazy”. We typically comment anything that is annoying, frustrating, and totally infuriating as driving us crazy. Clearly being mad to the point of insanity is a possible and likely usage here. Axel Wheeler said: > [@](#): > > There is much debate about whether people are poisoned by mercury today; Where do you come up with that? I don’t think anyone questions that mercury is poisonous. I see stories periodically on the news about mercury in cosmetics or dishware from Mexico, and the danger. DDG has provided numerous links on the medical dangers of mercury poisoning. > [@](#): > > Anyway to summarize: we (some of us, anyway, myself included) want the madness of hatters to derive from mercury poisoning, but there are plenty of other reasons for the popular perception of their madness and no evidence of poisoning. A possibly salvation for the mercury theory: Did hatters actually get poisoned by mercury, and thus add to the already popular perception of their madness? Again, I don’t follow your conclusion. What do you mean “no evidence of poisoning”? There is plenty of evidence that mercury is poisonous. There is plenty of evidence that hat makers use mercury in the process. There is plenty of evidence that hat makers got poisoned by the use of mercury in their hat making process. The only thing that seems to not be explicitly stated is the specific mercury process being used by hat makers immediately preceeding Carroll’s use of the phrase in his book. Given that the felting process has remained essentially unchanged (better methods, but the process is still the same), given that beaver felt required the mercury to be processed, given that beaver hats were common a lot earlier and all through the time period in question, and given that mercury has been known about and used for centuries prior to the time in question, it does not seem a leap by any means to think that mercury was in use by hat makers at the time. The lack of mentioning mercury as a hazard to hat makers by contemporaries hardly qualifies as proof mercury wasn’t used, as the dangers of a lot of things (including mercury fumes) were not understood at the time. > [@](#): > > My point is that with dangerous materials like mercury and lead there can be a tendency even for reputable historians to jump to the conclusion that these were responsible for various social ills. Maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. One way this can happen is that historians raise it as a possiblility and others repeat it as fact. Certainly we should be aware of a tendency to leap to conclusions, and to spread misinformation via the media. And since they did not know about the hazards of mercury fumes at the time, we certainly don’t have a contemporary explanation about hatters being mad because of mercury poisoning. However, it is _not_ a large leap to reach that conclusion upon reflection. We now know mercury is toxic, in relatively small doses. We know hatters were exposed to mercury by way of their methods. Current felt making processes are most assuredly not the same - a minimum of protective gear would be required, including respirators, heavy gloves, smocks or aprons, etc. We know the effects of mercury poisoning include severe nervous disorders, affecting mobility, coordination, sensitivity, and mood (even if not directly, being on constant pain can’t be easy to stay cheerful). The only thing that seems to be in question is if hatters getting mercury poisoning and thus behaving odd was the origin of the phrase, or it the phrase was coined in some other manner and just coincidentally reflected a common situation. Duck Duck Goose, I’ve just got to say you’ve gone the extra mile on this one. You rule! Have you considered boxing this up and sending it to snopes? I think they could stand a new review of the topic, in light of your efforts. But I do have one quibble with you - looking at the illustrations I can’t tell if the Mad Hatter’s eyes are rolling around or not. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/36 "2001-03-23T03:22:45Z")
**waterj2** wrote: [http://www.snopes2.com/spoons/fracture/hatter.htm](http://www.snopes2.com/spoons/fracture/hatter.htm) This is a particular sticking point of mine, because I wrote into the Snopes message board about their entry for “Mad as a Hatter” a long time ago. I have photocopied references, I even got copies of their sources (really, their one source, since one of them cites the other). I had every bit of evidence I needed to point out that their argument contradicted demonstrable facts. After two years of basically being ignored, I checked their “Mad as a Hatter” page to find that it had been changed slightly. The status had been changed to “undetermined” and they still cited the same “`mad' meant `venomous’” argument that I feel I had thoroughly debunked, though this time they used weaker language. Now they’ve downplayed that argument even further, but still cite it. This issue has already been very nicely handled in this thread, so this isn’t much of a contribution, but just because I’ve been sitting on this so long, I’m going to reproduce my Snopes post, which is less thorough than **Duck Duck Goose** ’s contributions, but nonetheless quite conclusive where the “`mad' meant `venomous’” argument is concerned: > [@](#): > > The case against the story that `mad as a hatter’ referred to the mind-corroding effects of the mercury used in the making of hats boils down to two points: > > 1. An alternate explanation is given that `hatter' is a corruption of `adder’ and that mad meant `venomous.’ > > 2. The story is discredited by pointing out that at the time Carroll (who is credited with coining the phrase) wrote Alice in Wonderland (in 1865), the word `mad' did not mean `insane,’ but rather, “violent, furious, angry, or venomous.” > > For the first point, I concede that there is a viable alternate explanation. I think it’s a less likely one, but it’s no more conclusive than the mercury story. Plus, it depends on an assumption that I find questionable, that the `h' was added where the pattern in english is for h's to be dropped. It has happened before, like in the word `heretic’ which was `eretik' in middle english, but that was really just a dropping of the h-sound in the Greek `airetikos, which was presumably later corrected. Do you know of any other case where English has added an h rather than dropped one? Without corroboration, it seems unlikely. > > As to the second point, it’s pretty clear that if `mad' ever meant `venomous’ that was secondary to its meaning as `insane.' In fact, I suspect that to the extent that it meant `venomous’ it was referring to a capacity to make others `mad’: > > The word mad, according to The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (third edition revised with addenda) comes from the Old English `gemaedan', meaning "to make insane." The Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Toller, T. Northcote) defines `gemaed’ as “troubled in mind, mad.” Neither mentions `venomous,’ except in the sense of “rabid.” > > The Middle English Dictionary (Kuhn, Sherman and Reidy, John) defines mad as “out of one’s wits, demented, crazy.” It too includes the sense of rabid, as in a `madde dogge,’ but again this is a secondary meaning. > > We know the word referred to insanity in Shakespeare’s time (late 16th century) because Polonius explains Hamlet’s behavior to the audience as such: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” > > Tennyson in the mid-1800’s wrote, “…to hear a dead man chatter/ Is enough to drive one mad.” Around the same time, Dickinson wrote “Much sadness is divinest sense/ To a discerning eye;/ Much sense the starkest madness.” > > In our modern usage, the word more often carries the sense of anger, but even now we recognize that it also means craziness. It seems clear to me that there was never a time when `mad' did not mean `insane.’ > > So, the word did mean `insane' at the time that Carroll wrote. Plus the claim that Carroll was making a word game out of an expression that was originally, "mad as an adder" is undermined by the fact that the term "mad as a hatter" was used at least twice before: Thackeray's _Pendennis_ (1894) and Thomas Haliburton's _The_Clockmaker_ (1837) (this information is from the Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson). The expression was already probably already in circulation in Carroll's time and the March Hare at the tea party was obviously a play on "mad as a march hare" which is also an expression meaning `insane,’ not `venomous.’ > > And whereas there are citations for the expression `mad as a hatter’ I can find no citations where someone has actually used “mad as an adder.” > > What with the claim that `mad' did not mean `insane’ clearly wrong, and the transformation of `adder' to `hatter’ being questionable, I think the mercury story has the better claim to The Inference to the Best Explanation ™. > > James “the Wet Hen didn’t make it to the tea party” Fassler ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/37 "2001-03-23T04:00:45Z")
Jim said > [@](#): > > What with the claim that `mad' did not mean `insane’ clearly wrong, and the transformation of `adder' to `hatter’ being questionable, I think the mercury story has the better claim to The Inference to the Best Explanation ™. I beg to politely differ. I think the better claim is that the expression evolved from/or along with such expressions as _mad as a buck_ , _mad as a marsh hare_, _mad as a wet hen_, _mad as maybutter_, etc., all of which were precursors, one as early as the 16th Century. I think the sheer number of similar expressions counts for something. It wasn’t like the phrase **mad as a …** was just invented around the 1830’s. It wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/38 "2001-03-23T05:14:03Z")
**samclem** wrote: > [@](#): > > I think the better claim is that the expression evolved from/or along with such expressions as _mad as a buck_ , _mad as a marsh hare_, _mad as a wet hen_, _mad as maybutter_, etc., all of which were precursors, one as early as the 16th Century. I think the sheer number of similar expressions counts for something. It wasn’t like the phrase mad as a … was just invented around the 1830’s. It wasn’t. But `mad as a hatter' is a fairly curious addition to that list. Why should a hatter in particularly be called `mad’? Did they also say, `mad as a baker'? `Mad as a blacksmith’? `Mad as a cooper’? This curious expression is still curious, even though the first three words have been used in a lot of other expressions. The mercury theory explains it, though certainty has not been attained. An alternate theory, that `hatter' is a corruption of `adder’, is viable, but not compelling. It might be more compelling if someone could dig up an actual use of the term, but so far it appears to be mere speculation that `mad as an adder’ was in circulation long enough to be corrupted, and even if could be shown that it was used, that doesn’t make that explanation any closer to certainty than the mercury theory. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/39 "2001-03-23T12:35:06Z")
Several points to mention here: From DDG’s reasons that Thackrah may have failed to mention mercury poisoning: > [@](#): > > 1. Maybe they didn’t understand yet that mercuric nitrate had toxic fumes. They may have thought that since you didn’t immediately fall over dead upon sniffing mercuric nitrate, that meant it wasn’t toxic. This seems doubtful, as I recall having run across references to mercury miners working lessened hours due to poisoning. > [@](#): > > 1. Maybe back in the 1830s in Britain they weren’t concerned with invisible air pollution yet. There was an increasing emphasis overall on fresh air, good ventilation, and exercise (see Thackrah’s advice to the girls to get more fresh air), but maybe they didn’t really understand that something you couldn’t see or smell in the air could actually be bad for you. They could legislate against bad smells because those are hard to miss, but invisible, odorless fumes might have escaped their notice. Given what I saw about Thackrah, this also seems unlikely. Apparently, he was specifically looking for things of the sort. It is possible that he was still inclined to only look at pollutants that could be noticed, but certainly he would have seen the effects. Well, most likely. So if Thackrah’s book with the unwieldy title contains references to hatters, and does not mention any madness, and indicates that the carrotting agent was something other than mercury, _and_ no more reliable source can be found to indicate that mercury was used at the time, that would cast a pretty substantial cloud of doubt on the mercury poisoning theory. I’m still waiting to see if the hatsUK forum people reply to me to provide an authoritative answer on whether mercury was used at the time. That would pretty much render Thackrah irrelevant. As for some of Axel’s ideas: > [@](#): > > Actual hatter poisoning -\> public perception of hatters as poisoned by mercury -\> public perception of hatters as mad It is incredibly improbable that people would have really cared that hatters were being exposed to harmful levels of mercury vapor before noticing the symptoms. > [@](#): > > No poisoning -\> public perception of hatters as poisoned by mercury (because of mercury scare) -\> public perception of hatters as mad But we know that hatters were later victims of mercury poisoning, which would be silly if people were that scared of mercury. Also, I don’t think the public was terribly aware of the dangers of mercury. > [@](#): > > No poisoning but other odd hatter behavior (see below) -\> public perception of hatters as mad This just seems contrived after the fact to get around thinking that hatters acted mad due to mercury poisoning. Plus, what DDG said about the other odd behavior. > [@](#): > > A few hatters poisoned but mostly other odd behavior -\> public perception of hatters as mad, but no one knows why As before, the “other odd behavior” seems hardly convincing, while what is known about mercury poisoning is a far more satisfying explanation. > [@](#): > > I am beginning to suspect that whether or not mercury actually made hatters mad, the public perception of madness did not seem to involve mercury. That’s because, at the time, mercury was not known to be the source. Mercury did make hatters mad, but all the public saw was the mad hatters, and they really didn’t know why. I don’t understand why you expect the people in 1830’s Britain to be educated in the effects of mercury poisoning and in the fact that mercury was used by hatters. > [@](#): > > Anyway to summarize: we (some of us, anyway, myself included) want the madness of hatters to derive from mercury poisoning, but there are plenty of other reasons for the popular perception of their madness and no evidence of poisoning. A possibly salvation for the mercury theory: Did hatters actually get poisoned by mercury, and thus add to the already popular perception of their madness? There is evidence of poisoning. We are only lacking evidence that it occurred as early as 1837. Just because no one knew that mercury was the culprit at the time does not mean that we can’t look back and see reports describing various symptoms, connect that with the chemicals that hatters would have been using, and make an accurate diagnosis. At the time, knowing far less about mercury, the public, and probably even doctors, couldn’t. Actually, I think it’s fairly common that we now can theorize on the causes of supposed madnesses of the past, for example, St. Vitus’ Dance. > [@](#): > > My point is that with dangerous materials like mercury and lead there can be a tendency even for reputable historians to jump to the conclusion that these were responsible for various social ills. Maybe they were and maybe they weren’t. One way this can happen is that historians raise it as a possiblility and others repeat it as fact. Given that hatters used mercury as late as the 1940’s, when it was banned, I think it’s pretty certain that mercury poisoning was having a noticeable effect on hatters. If you’re going to argue “maybe the reputable historians are all wrong” you need more than “we can’t _really_ be sure”. > [@](#): > > Moreover, there exists a possibility Carroll was unaware either of the mercury connection to the existing saying or was entirely unaware of the saying itself and believed he had coined it himself. So, Snopes is suggesting that perhaps Lewis Carroll made up a phrase that had been in print for twenty years, but that he had never heard of, that also happened to accurately describe a real situation? Sure, it can’t be _entirely_ ruled out, but neither can demonic possession. As it stands, the mercury theory stands far ahead of the adder theory. The only weakness in the mercury theory is that it has not been established that hatters were using mercury in the 1830’s, but the competing theory is just as weak, since (according to Snopes) “I can find no citations where someone has actually used “mad as an adder.”” > [@](#): > > I think the better claim is that the expression evolved from/or along with such expressions as _mad as a buck_ , _mad as a marsh hare_, _mad as a wet hen_, _mad as maybutter_, etc., all of which were precursors, one as early as the 16th Century. I think the sheer number of similar expressions counts for something. It wasn’t like the phrase mad as a … was just invented around the 1830’s. It wasn’t. I agree a little bit, but I think it’s far more likely that people filled in the blank with things they thought were mad than just random things that would later appear mad entirely by coincidence. Most likely, “mad as a hatter” arose sometime in the early 19th century (perhaps earlier) as a variant on that theme, based on the fact that hatters seemed mad. OK, I’ll stop now, because I think I’m perhaps being a little repetitive. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2001, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244/40 "2001-03-23T13:30:45Z")
The missing link, it seems to me, is the question: **when** was it known that mercury poisoning caused the various symptoms described in DDG’s post above? My reconstruction of what we’ve got so far: the phrase “mad as a…” was certainly in common use for a long time, right up there with “wise as a [owl, fox, pope…]” or “stupid as a [mule, post, George Bush…]” Such expressions have been around for centuries. At some point (1700s, I think we’ve established?), hatters started using mercury to cure beaver felt. This produced mercury poisoning and symptoms (the shakes, among others, and mood swings) that were noticed as common amongst hatters. ASIDE: Note that many of the symptoms are physical behavioral symptoms, that could easily have been classified as insanity (as opposed to coughing fits, for instance, that might have been viewed as disease.) IN ANY CASE, the cause (mercury poisoning) was **not** known at that time. Thus, the expression, “mad as a hatter” arose in the early 1800s. The term “mad” certainly meant insane, and the distinction between violent temper (mad/angry) and mood swings (mad/insane) was probably not made. Carroll therefore took a reasonably common expression and made it into a character, as he did with “a cat can look at a king” and the March Hare and the poem about the knave of hearts stealing the tarts, etc. Carroll was probably unaware of the mercury connection – I think he was taking a popular expression that he thought amusing. If he had thought there was a serious pollution-related illness, I doubt he would have worked it into his story for children. There are certainly death-jokes in the Alice books, but they are fairly subtle rather than overt. And there are no jokes (IIRC) about crippling diseases. Since Carroll’s time, we have learned that the cause of hatters’ shakes was most likely the mercury poisoning. This seems to me to be what all the evidence indicates. The alternate expressions “mad as an adder” have some plausibility, but the sequence I’ve just outlined has a very high plausibilty, internal consistency, and is consistent with external evidence. I’m a great admirer of Snopes, but I think they blew this one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mad-hatter-its-believed/58244.md?page=3)