Hacker News Reader

Comment by fragsworth | Hacker News Reader

I had a physics class in a community college that had us handling open containers of mercury for our experiments. It was maybe 15 years ago.

Someone in one of the classes managed to knock one of the jars over, and mercury spilled everywhere on the floor. Either the students hid their spill from the staff, or the staff just had some janitors do a simple sweeping of it, because I noticed spheres of mercury everywhere in that classroom throughout the semester.

I didn't realize that mercury spills are such a huge issue until recently.

The professor also seemed to be going crazy, which suggests to me that this happened more than once in the past and he was suffering from the effects of mercury poisoning.

View on HN

> I didn't realize that mercury spills are such a huge issue until recently.

As the post mentions, the world at large didn't realize that vapors from mercury spills are toxic until recently.

Um, someone (not saying I) may or may not have played with mercury from a broken thermometer as a child. Is that person (not necessarily I) a walking health hazard? How does this work?

It's the kind of thing that would probably only become symptomatic after years of living in an environment with persistently raised mercury levels in the air, like the OP's house.

Ah, makes sense. I guess that someone (not necessarily I) is in the clear as it was not a prolonged exposure. However, since that someone (not necessarily me) may or may not have disposed off the drops of mercury improperly, I wonder how often people disposed off of mercury properly in the past.

There is some awareness about asbestos but probably not mercury. It'd suck to buy a house and a month later discover a puddle of mercury in the attic.

It accumulates in the body (since it takes decades to go back out), so one-time small exposure is not so bad. Long-term exposure or a very high exposure (like drinking some) on the other hand...

Short term exposure isn't much of an issue, unless you inhale or ingest it. (Simply playing with it isn't going to send out massive amounts of vapor; it's not super volatile.) The real fear is that it seeps into a hard to clean place and provides a steady stream of vapor over a long time.... basically what the OP illustrated about his house.

Previous generations had no qualms playing with it or lighting it on fire in science class. While it might not have been super healthy, we also don't have a generation of mad hatters.

I think this mercury scare is overrated. I have played with thermometer mercury many times as a child. I used to break thermometer to get the mercury out and play with it as it was very interesting liquid! Am still well and alive after 20-25 years.

Alive? Yes. Sane? Arguable, :p

No, mercury vapors have been documented as toxic for centuries. It was noticed that sailors on ships that transported large amounts of open mercury would get sick from the vapors.

It's also the fact that elemental mercury's toxic side effects are really hard to quantify and see because it fucks up the central nervous system, and is of more psychological detriment. Note that this is elemental mercury, not methylmercury, which only happens from predatory bio-accumulation in fish.

Over the years OSHA has consistently been lowering their safe mercury exposure levels (blood tests), and it's fast approaching "No mercury exposure at all is best."

I used to work in a lab with a ton of mercury in it, and some lab workers who were quite liberal with their handling of mercury, and liberal over 20 years. I don't know if they were crazy from the start, but I didn't want to find out.

Agreed, except that methylmercury and other similar organic compounds do occur in the world in places other than carnivorous fish, and sometimes people do get exposed to them in those other places.

"The professor also seemed to be going crazy..."

Mad as a hatter? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_as_a_hatter)

They're not - it takes quite a bit of temperature to vaporize (unless nebulized via vacuum cleaner or something) and you gotta be an idiot to eat it... Just clean it up carefully...

I remember playing with mercury when I was a kid, rolling it around in my hands, etc. Luckily it was only on one occasion, not something you'd want to make a habit of I guess.

Yep, was alway a treat when a thermometer broke, you'd get to play with the Mercury. Coating copper pennies with it was especially fun! Little did we know.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com