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i hear a lot of things about mercury, like how the goverment scares people so they can use mercury to mine gold. that only ion mercury HG(ii)and methyl mercury is poisinous. so heres my question, is the metal mercury inert and okay to use or do you have to use a mask and stuff like that.

/no reason i was just wondering.

I believe that liquid mercury metal is toxic, but not quite so bad as compounds of mercury.

The metal is a cumulative poison so any contact should be avoided - it is absorbed through the skin.

Even at room temperatures there can be enough mercury in the air near mercury liquid that breathing this air is dangerous. I don't know which masks would protect you. Most masks are designed to protect against dust, not vapour.

The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland is mad due to mercury poising. At one time they used mercury in the process of curing the felt used in the hats.

Elemental mercury readilly reacts to form it's toxic forms. This is why dental amalgams are considered safe, as amalgams are very stable.

ah, thanks. i just saw some idiot on youtube playing with mercury with a little kid nearby. he is being extremly dogmatic and argues with everyone who says that he is going to be poisined.

/how come one of the coolest elements has to be one of the most poisinous.
//for some reason i cant spell anything with poison today.

Well, as Cloud said, the reason hatters went mad was because they used mercury in the process of making felt, and well, they got too much mercury and went mad. As long as mercury is inside a glass tube or other tube, and you aren't in contact with it, it is safe enough, and its a very good conductor - back before mercury was considered toxic waste and all sorts of restrictions were placed on it, it was used in both thermometers(and by extension temperature-activated switches), as well as gravity-tilt switches(basically a bubble of elemental mercury in a tube, usually glass, with 2 contacts at one end of the tube. if that end is down, or down far enough that the mercury, which stays in a bubble, will slide to that end, it makes contact between the two contacts, closing the switch. it works very well, and really doesn't wear out, unlike normal switches. I have one of these, later, if anyone wants me to, Ill take pics of it). But yea, dont play with it. As long as its in a glass tube, its perfectly safe, but yea, if it gets out, no playing with it.

-Robbie

Fun Fact: any metal is poisonous in quanity. Iron is necessary for blood cells, yet too much causes urinary problems and worse, same for zinc and other metals used by the body.

But Mercury is toxic, period. Be careful around it because it can be absorbed through the skin.

in fact, ANY element is poisonous.

e.g.

water intoxication.
death from breathing pure oxygen
fat is good to keep yourself warm... but causes heart problems.

what defines a poison is it's dosage and how it's used. i've watched a documentary once and there are some of these monks or something that take in miniscule amounts of arsenic to kill bacteria within the body.

I wonder if anyone here can confirm this, but when you receive mercury poisoning, does it not cause psychological symptoms as well, such as aggressive behavior, uncontrolled mood swings, and short term memory loss? My mother said she had gotten a mild case of the poison and said during the time she was extremely aggressive, nearly wanting to really hurt everyone in my family and was constantly standing around, forgetting things. Afterwards, she was treated at the local hospital. Or so she had told me.

AFAIK those symptoms are common with any type of heavy metal poisoning. In large enough doses or over enought time it will start affecting the nervous system. Hence, loss of sanity and a slide into madness. Probably not as extreme as in Saharah (comes out more in the bok than the movie) but I wouldn't know.



Reminds of a CSI episode. The guy died of heavy metal poisoning.....from gold.

That is strangely similar to an episode of House where this woman was poisoning her husband with gold.

Perhaps allergenic reactions on a lethal level? I have known a girl once who was allergic to gold and other metals with similar traits.

Too much vitamin B-something (the one in sweet potatoes) con cause a horrifying illness where you lose the sense that tells you where your limbs are w/o looking, so that it feels like you're in a body that is not your own.

Viatimins: A, D, and one of the B's I think are deadly in mass quanties.

Viatmin A, turns you orange, then you die.

Maybe it was House I was thinking of......