Exactly, mercury does “evaporate” after a fashion, but unless the guy was in a small airtight container with it for an extended period of time, it’s not insta-death just to touch or play with it.
To do that you’d have to have some route of entry more accessible than just your pores, such as an open wound or drinking the stuff etc.
It would have to be ingested or absorbed over a period of time (not sure how long that period would have to be as I’m in the “classify, characterize and dispose properly” end of things, but if you’re interested www.epa.gov has info on TCLP metals their LDLs, etc and all the info on death by mercury you’d want).
But, I agree, it’s not a toy and good for you for returning it to it’s rightful place!
I may be misremembering, but I think the problem with mercury is the potential for some truly horrid birth defects if a pregnant mother is exposed to it in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Since this is before a person knows they are pregnant, and since pregnancy isn’t exactly unheard of in a high school, I think the OP did the right thing.
when I was in HS about 20 years ago a kid appareently committed suicide by ingesting a large quantity of mercury he had stolen from the chem lab. Just what would that do to a person? Could this just be a story??
when I was in HS about 20 years ago a kid appareently committed suicide by ingesting a large quantity of mercury he had stolen from the chem lab. Just what would that do to a person? Could this just be a story??
Do you have a cite for this? Everything I’ve found on the net indicates that mercury compounds were the specifics for syphilis from the 1500’s until the early 1900’s (when arsenic compounds started being used!).
It wasn’t a particularly fast or effective treatment but it was all they had.
I was under the impression that Mercury, is ingested, tended to, ehm, run through the digestive tract rather quickly and uncontrolably, with no side effects. Can anyone confirm?
I’ve heard the same story. I was told by a friend that a common prank his dad pulled when he was serving in the Navy was to put some mecury in a glass of milk. Reason being that when someone swigged the milk back rapidly, they’d swallow the mercury and get to experience what fans of olestra call “anal leakage.”
I was kinda under the impression that the mercury “cure” would kill you or drive you insane, at which point syphilis became the least of your problems.
Mercury is about as lethal as a roll of tinfoil, and a hell of a lot more fun. It’s prolonged exposure to the vapor that you have to worry about, or some mercury salts (which’ll kill you D-E-D dead with just a tiny exposure).
::continuing to beat my head into the desk in an effort to forget just how freaking paranoid people are about ‘dangerous chemicals’::