"greysky" wrote in message
om...

"Double-A" wrote in message
oups.com...

G=EMC^2 Glazier wrote:
Warning Warning Warning Once mercury gets into your blood its very
bad
news. It ends up in your brain and nerve system. You will die a
death
very close to Parkinsen disease. If even you swallow just a little
Bert


I heard that swallowing mercury was somewhat of a fad back in the
renaissance days. Mercury was used in a lot of traditional medicines
too. My dentist put lots of it in my teeth in all those amalgam
filings. That metallic taste couldn't have been from the silver! He
even gave me some mercury to take home and play with (shutter!). In
school they put Mercurichrome on my cuts and scrapes, loaded with
mercury. In college chemistry class we did the notorious classic
experiment of heating cinnabar and condensing mercury, presumably
inhaling lots of mercury vapor during the experiment. Then we washed
the mercury down the drain, leaving a deposit in the trap to provide
the lab air with a continuous supply of mercury vapor! I found that
I
liked swordfish. Then I found out that it is very high in mercury!
I
was told to use a salve for a rash I had. Yep! Loaded with mercury!

So if I seem a little edgy, I guess its because all that accumulated
nerve damage from all that mercury over the years!

Double-A

Actually, Mercury has gotten a bad rap these past years. Mercury in
metal form, such as in thermometers, represents very little danger. If
a kid eats it, it passes through the gut and out the other end with
little interaction with the body. Mercury in other forms, such as
cinnabar, is very bad however. Boiling mercury over a open flame is
even worse. Old time prospectors used to collect the gold flakes out
of their pan by adding mercury to the mix. The gold dissolves in the
mercury, and eventually a putty like substance called hardcake is
formed. The miners used to cook their hardcake in a hollowed out
potato, and boil off the mercury leaving only gold behind. Of course,
they also exposed themselves (and the environment ) to a whopping
amount of mercury vapors and sometimes went mad. Old time
photographers also used mercury in their flash powder and photo
developing chemicals - over time the mercury they contacted and
absorbed destroyed their brains. The disease was called The Mad
Hatters sickness, and sufferers would rip their own eyes out of their
heads and cut their own throats amongst other gruesome things. But, a
small kid playing with liquid mercury is pretty safe even if they eat
it. "course, I wouldn't make a habit of it...


When we were kids, we used to make real shiny dimes with mercury.
Rubbing it on the dimes with our fingers. But I swear I got no drain
blamage from it. ;-) Older kid that lived behind us was a chemistry
buff and used to make fulminated mercury to blow things up. I think he
blew up his lab in the barn more than one time.

FrediFizzx

Quantum Vacuum Charge papers;
http://www.vacuum-physics.com/QVC/qu...uum_charge.pdf
or postscript
http://www.vacuum-physics.com/QVC/qu...cuum_charge.ps
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0601110
http://www.vacuum-physics.com