Blue Mass

[Eva Elisabeth]

(05-07-2014 01:42 PM)LincolnMan Wrote:  "Mercury as a stimulant to purge morbid excitement from the brain"- What???
Dr. Rush was a brillant man- and if I recall correctly- a signer of the Declaration- but his assessment of the work of mercury sounds fanciful. Yet, I suppose, that it was thought to do just that back in his day.

Obviously Dr. Rush had neither ever heard the phrase "mad as a hatter" (the earliest mention of which was in the 17th century) or of the "Danbury Shakes" (Danbury, Connecticut, was the hat making capital of the 19th century world).

The origin of the phrase is as follows: To soften and mat the hair, mostly rabbits hair, former hatmakers used a heated solution of mercury (II) nitrate. Prolonged exposure to the mercury vapors caused mercury poisoning, resulting in symptoms like muscular tremors and twitching limbs, called 'hatter's shakes', distorted vision and confused speech, erratic, flamboyant behavior, mood swings, hallucinations, and other psychotic symptoms. The most famous Mad Hatter is probably the one of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, although his "model" most likely was not a hatter, but a local furniture dealer, Theophilus Carter, who was nicknamed "Mad Hatter", because he always wore a hat, he was eccentric, and he made crazy inventions.
   
BTW#1: Pliny the Elder (23-79) had already reported about mercury poisoning of miners. (As you may remember from school days, the chemical symbol, Hg, stands for hydrargyrum, "water silver." This -Greek!- name was given by Pliny since it looks like silver and is liquid at room temperature.) The WHO stated in 1976 that long-term, low-level exposure has been found to be associated with less pronounced symptoms of erethism, characterized by fatigue, irritability, loss of memory, vivid dreams, and depression.

BTW#2: One chapter of Wild Bill Richter's "Last Confederate Heroes" is entitled "Madder than a Hatter". It is about Junius Booth the elder, and tells one story I absolutely loved for several reasons (beginning with the narrative style itself): How "Booth asked a clergyman to officiate in the burial of ...friends", and these were quite peculiar friends...