The magical properties of Mercury, the metal the EU wants to ban
By MICHAEL HANLON, Science Editor
7th June 2007
Daily Mail
Temperature change: Thermometers like this will be banned thanks to the EU
Few substances on Earth are stranger. It shines like a mirror, conducts electricity and is as much of a metal as copper or iron.
Yet this material is a liquid, one of only five naturally occurring elements that are liquid at room temperature.
It is the stuff of legend, the key to alchemy and witchcraft, a deadly poison and yet also a potent medicine. We use it to weigh the air, generate reflections and also to measure our temperature.
And now Brussels is banning it. Of course, not even the European Commission has the power to ban a chemical element, but what they have done is forbidden its use in traditionally made scientific instruments on health and safety and environmental grounds.
Britain's traditional barometer makers now face closure, effectively bringing to an end more than 350 years of a unique craft. Mercury thermometers - every mother's godsend - are similarly under threat.
Mercury is poisonous, rots the brain and is a general menace, Brussels says. Therefore, no more shiny quicksilver in your weather instruments.
So what exactly is this mysterious substance that most of us have only glimpsed through the glass of a thermometer and which has so riled the bureaucrats of the EU?
Quicksilver, the old name for mercury, is a heavy metallic element, 13.5 times denser than water.
This density gives rise to some of mercury's most fascinating properties. If you built a bath of mercury and jumped in, you would break your bones.
Once in, you would bob around on the surface like an insect on water, barely sinking in an inch.
If you had the balance you could easily walk on mercury and it is possible to play billiards on a mercury bath - the balls would only sink a fraction of an inch.
When I studied chemistry at school, mercury was most definitely not banned. We were encouraged to touch it, prod and poke the strange glacial metal.
Once we even tried to suck a column of mercury through a tube - a nice illustration of how barometers work. Also a nice way of getting a mouth and lungs full of mercury vapour.
Another time, a ceramic bowl of mercury was placed before the class. Our teacher called us up to investigate its strange properties. I remember taking a penny from my pocket and floating it on the surface of this silvery puddle.
"Go on, try to push it under," I was urged. I pushed. The penny yielded, but only with difficulty. Such is the density of the metal.
To touch cold mercury feels like, well, nothing else on Earth. Not liquid, not solid, but cold, clammy - like cold, fresh liver wrapped in clingfilm.
A mercury fountain was constructed for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, and in Islamic Spain large reflecting pools were filled with mercury to allow Caliphs to gaze at their reflections.
Thanks to the fact that almost anything will float in mercury baths, they were traditionally used as a low-friction rotation mechanism for the giant mirrors in lighthouses.
Historically, man has always treated quicksilver with a mixture of fear and respect.
Fear because it is toxic, and respect both for its strange properties and its supposed medical uses.
The vapours given off by this extraordinary element are highly toxic. In the 19th century, a process called "carroting" was used in the making of felt hats.
Animal skins were dipped in a solution of mercuric nitrate which turned the fur into a matted felt. The fumes given off by this process poisoned the brains of anyone in the vicinity, causing an epidemic of psychiatric problems among workers in the hat industry, hence the phrase "as mad as a hatter".
Mozart, who died aged just 35, was suspected to have been a victim of mercury poisoning, the rather worrying symptoms of which include memory loss, excessive salivation, emotional oversensitivity, forgetfulness, timidity and delirium. The key symptom is wobbly handwriting.
The composer would not have got his mercury poisoning from playing with thermometers or making hats, but from his notorious womanising.
Syphilis, a venereal disease, was common in the 19th century, and the only treatment was copious doses of mercury - a sort of primitive anti-bacterial chemotherapy.
The use of mercury to treat this disease gave rise to the saying "a night in the arms of Venus leads to a lifetime on Mercury".
Though no proper studies were done to prove it, mercury may have been an effective, if rather brutal, way of treating syphilis. It was administered in multiple ways, including by mouth and by rubbing it on the skin.
One of the more gruesome methods was fumigation, in which the patient/victim was placed in a closed box with their head sticking out. Mercury was placed in the box and a fire was started under the box which caused the metal to vapourise.
Interestingly, it may have been the use of mercury to treat syphilis that gave rise to the whole nonsense that is homeopathy.
In the 18th century, the founder of modern homeopathy, Dr Samuel Hahnemann, noticed that the efficacy of mercuric cures for syphilis was increased if the compounds were ground into a fine paste.
The idea that minute particles of a substance can make more effective medicine is ingrained in homeopathic doctrine, and to this day homeopaths recommend diluted mercury compounds to treat syphilis. Conventional medicine prefers to treat the disease with antibiotics.
It may be dangerous, but mercury is also extremely useful. It has myriad uses - the "silvering" on the backs of mirrors, as a constituent in dental amalgam (despite its toxicity and a publicity campaign by "anti-mercury" dentists, there is little evidence that mercurybased fillings have ever done anyone any harm), and in countless electrical devices.
Mercury compounds have been used even in modern medicine, and mercury was also allegedly used as an extremely cunning weapon in World War II. Allied spies spread a paste of mercury on the wings and fuselages of German planes.
Mercury dissolves aluminium, and the planes mysteriously fell apart in mid-air.
Mercury's otherworldliness has always been recognised. In China, India and Tibet, mercury compounds were thought to prolong life (although they often had the opposite effect).
The Hindi word for alchemy is "Rassayana", which means "the way of mercury". Alchemists thought mercury was a primordial element, the first matter from which all metals were formed.
Mercury was thought to be the key to the transformation of base metals into gold (the holy grail of alchemy), perhaps because the noblest and most precious of metals actually dissolves in the stuff.
Most of us these days will never experience this strange, dangerous metal. Brussels is undoubtedly right to try to reduce the amount of mercury in our environment, although banning barometers and thermometers seems like busybody overkill.
It's a good job the bureaucrats of Brussels were not around when the Caliphs of Granada were filling their mercury baths and gazing at the shimmering reflections within.
dailymail.co.uk
By MICHAEL HANLON, Science Editor
7th June 2007
Daily Mail
Temperature change: Thermometers like this will be banned thanks to the EU
Few substances on Earth are stranger. It shines like a mirror, conducts electricity and is as much of a metal as copper or iron.
Yet this material is a liquid, one of only five naturally occurring elements that are liquid at room temperature.
It is the stuff of legend, the key to alchemy and witchcraft, a deadly poison and yet also a potent medicine. We use it to weigh the air, generate reflections and also to measure our temperature.
And now Brussels is banning it. Of course, not even the European Commission has the power to ban a chemical element, but what they have done is forbidden its use in traditionally made scientific instruments on health and safety and environmental grounds.
Britain's traditional barometer makers now face closure, effectively bringing to an end more than 350 years of a unique craft. Mercury thermometers - every mother's godsend - are similarly under threat.
Mercury is poisonous, rots the brain and is a general menace, Brussels says. Therefore, no more shiny quicksilver in your weather instruments.
So what exactly is this mysterious substance that most of us have only glimpsed through the glass of a thermometer and which has so riled the bureaucrats of the EU?
Quicksilver, the old name for mercury, is a heavy metallic element, 13.5 times denser than water.
This density gives rise to some of mercury's most fascinating properties. If you built a bath of mercury and jumped in, you would break your bones.
Once in, you would bob around on the surface like an insect on water, barely sinking in an inch.
If you had the balance you could easily walk on mercury and it is possible to play billiards on a mercury bath - the balls would only sink a fraction of an inch.
When I studied chemistry at school, mercury was most definitely not banned. We were encouraged to touch it, prod and poke the strange glacial metal.
Once we even tried to suck a column of mercury through a tube - a nice illustration of how barometers work. Also a nice way of getting a mouth and lungs full of mercury vapour.
Another time, a ceramic bowl of mercury was placed before the class. Our teacher called us up to investigate its strange properties. I remember taking a penny from my pocket and floating it on the surface of this silvery puddle.
"Go on, try to push it under," I was urged. I pushed. The penny yielded, but only with difficulty. Such is the density of the metal.
To touch cold mercury feels like, well, nothing else on Earth. Not liquid, not solid, but cold, clammy - like cold, fresh liver wrapped in clingfilm.
A mercury fountain was constructed for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris, and in Islamic Spain large reflecting pools were filled with mercury to allow Caliphs to gaze at their reflections.
Thanks to the fact that almost anything will float in mercury baths, they were traditionally used as a low-friction rotation mechanism for the giant mirrors in lighthouses.
Historically, man has always treated quicksilver with a mixture of fear and respect.
Fear because it is toxic, and respect both for its strange properties and its supposed medical uses.
The vapours given off by this extraordinary element are highly toxic. In the 19th century, a process called "carroting" was used in the making of felt hats.
Animal skins were dipped in a solution of mercuric nitrate which turned the fur into a matted felt. The fumes given off by this process poisoned the brains of anyone in the vicinity, causing an epidemic of psychiatric problems among workers in the hat industry, hence the phrase "as mad as a hatter".
Mozart, who died aged just 35, was suspected to have been a victim of mercury poisoning, the rather worrying symptoms of which include memory loss, excessive salivation, emotional oversensitivity, forgetfulness, timidity and delirium. The key symptom is wobbly handwriting.
The composer would not have got his mercury poisoning from playing with thermometers or making hats, but from his notorious womanising.
Syphilis, a venereal disease, was common in the 19th century, and the only treatment was copious doses of mercury - a sort of primitive anti-bacterial chemotherapy.
The use of mercury to treat this disease gave rise to the saying "a night in the arms of Venus leads to a lifetime on Mercury".
Though no proper studies were done to prove it, mercury may have been an effective, if rather brutal, way of treating syphilis. It was administered in multiple ways, including by mouth and by rubbing it on the skin.
One of the more gruesome methods was fumigation, in which the patient/victim was placed in a closed box with their head sticking out. Mercury was placed in the box and a fire was started under the box which caused the metal to vapourise.
Interestingly, it may have been the use of mercury to treat syphilis that gave rise to the whole nonsense that is homeopathy.
In the 18th century, the founder of modern homeopathy, Dr Samuel Hahnemann, noticed that the efficacy of mercuric cures for syphilis was increased if the compounds were ground into a fine paste.
The idea that minute particles of a substance can make more effective medicine is ingrained in homeopathic doctrine, and to this day homeopaths recommend diluted mercury compounds to treat syphilis. Conventional medicine prefers to treat the disease with antibiotics.
It may be dangerous, but mercury is also extremely useful. It has myriad uses - the "silvering" on the backs of mirrors, as a constituent in dental amalgam (despite its toxicity and a publicity campaign by "anti-mercury" dentists, there is little evidence that mercurybased fillings have ever done anyone any harm), and in countless electrical devices.
Mercury compounds have been used even in modern medicine, and mercury was also allegedly used as an extremely cunning weapon in World War II. Allied spies spread a paste of mercury on the wings and fuselages of German planes.
Mercury dissolves aluminium, and the planes mysteriously fell apart in mid-air.
Mercury's otherworldliness has always been recognised. In China, India and Tibet, mercury compounds were thought to prolong life (although they often had the opposite effect).
The Hindi word for alchemy is "Rassayana", which means "the way of mercury". Alchemists thought mercury was a primordial element, the first matter from which all metals were formed.
Mercury was thought to be the key to the transformation of base metals into gold (the holy grail of alchemy), perhaps because the noblest and most precious of metals actually dissolves in the stuff.
Most of us these days will never experience this strange, dangerous metal. Brussels is undoubtedly right to try to reduce the amount of mercury in our environment, although banning barometers and thermometers seems like busybody overkill.
It's a good job the bureaucrats of Brussels were not around when the Caliphs of Granada were filling their mercury baths and gazing at the shimmering reflections within.
dailymail.co.uk
