That's what I was thinking, it was my understanding that elemental
mercury is not all _that_ readily absorbable by the body. The kind that
you need to worry about is the sort that has already been absorbed by a
body (like a fish) and so is in a form that your body will happily
accept.. and also, as one other poster mentioned, these new CFL bulbs
that everyone is pushing have plenty of mercury in them.. In the US,
most people seem to just toss them in the trash (headed for the landfill).
I know that in Butte, Montana they used to mine copper in an open pit
mine using astonishing amounts of mercury. Their water table is
permanently poisoned... (But I don't think that stops them from using it!)
-Adam
On 2/9/2012 8:19 AM, Nick wrote:
On Feb 9, 4:02 pm, Nicholas Stock<[email protected]> wrote:
Nick, we used to do the same with the trains....small pennies or pieces of
granite from the sidings...fun times. As a practicing chemist, I understand
the hazards with dealing with toxic substances, but some of this has got
out of hand. Mercury salts are the ones to truly be worried about, and
alkyl mercurys can kill you very quickly, but mercury vapour inhalation
takes some time to manifest symptoms I believe....I still remember one kid
in my class who thought it was funny to swallow a small drop of
mercury....probably just passed right through him (I didn't ask at the
time..;-)
In Victorian times, a pint of liquid mercury used to be drunk as a
cure for constipation (it was collected afterwards for reuse - a sort
of family heirloom).
Nick
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