Elemental mercury gets a bit of a bad rap...it really isn't as deadly as people make out....minimal acute exposure will not do much harm (did amalgam fillings really impair the life expectancy of most that had them?). Chronic exposure to the vapor will cause issues however. Mercury salts and organo-mercury compounds are the ones to be concerned about ingesting or even touching, but even then the hullabaloo about eating too much Tuna is a bit over-blown (IMHO)....how many nursing Japanese women don't eat sushi? LOL. I know of one particularly nasty case of mercury poisoning however...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn ...not a nice way to go....and the exposure was very minimal....beware dialkyl mercury! On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 11:35 AM gregebert <[email protected]> wrote: > I still have a small vial of mercury I removed from light switches almost > 50 years ago. > > There is a "pellet" with metal on both sides, separated by a glass or > ceramic bead. When the switch is tilted up, the mercury makes electrical > contact to both metal sides and a hole inside the ceramic bead. I was 10 > years old at the time, and we were very nervous about breaking the bead > because some mercury compounds are explosive (mercury fulminate). After > debating a few days, we cracked it open and course we were enthralled with > the mystery liquid, but we knew it was toxic and never touched or heated it. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "neonixie-l" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/9bf95370-081d-4da7-9a47-1d46977d50d0%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/9bf95370-081d-4da7-9a47-1d46977d50d0%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/CAOX%2BRHKO8gPVob__4jikHtx5jfNXuCG%2BpGOBP4YPMGE_k7xg8Q%40mail.gmail.com.
