Let me tell you about the lady who consumed an entire paperback novel in one day. I don’t mean consumed as in “read voraciously,” I mean consumed as in “ate.” This was unusual, because books were not her regular fare. She mostly snacked on Kleenex boxes and cigarette packages. These strange dining habits came to light when she sought medical help for chronic headaches, dizzy spells, and tunnel vision. Unable to diagnose the problem, her physician ordered a battery of tests, which revealed a high level of mercury in the blood. Where could it have come from? The physician’s probing questions eventually identified the bizarre diet as the source of the mercury. At the time, in the 1980s, mercury compounds were commonly used as fungicides in the pulp and paper industry. Indeed, analysis of a Kleenex box revealed 83 parts per billion of mercury, and in a paperback similar to the one that served as a meal, a whopping 431 PPB. The lady was suffering from the effects of mercury poisoning!
“Pica,” as the eating of unusual substances is known, is often a symptom of iron deficiency. This patient turned out to have a very low level of iron, which was quickly remedied with a week of ferrous sulfate therapy. Her penchant for eating paper disappeared, as did the headaches and other mercury-associated symptoms. Had the mercury toxicity not been recognized, the outcome could have been tragic. Like it was in the case of three lighthouse keepers on Australia’s Rottnest Island.
This tiny island is home to Australia’s first-ever rotating beam lighthouse. As in most lighthouses constructed in the 1800s, the apparatus containing the lenses that revolve around the light source is extremely heavy, and sits on a bed of mercury. This reduces friction to such an extent that the machinery can be set in motion by a mere touch. Unfortunately, mercury poisoning can also be set in motion. Mercury evaporates and can be readily inhaled. In sufficient amounts it can lead to delusions, irritability, insomnia, and depression. It can drive people to suicide. That appears to have been the fate of the first three lighthouse keepers on Rottnest Island. All three killed themselves. Was it loneliness, or was it the mercury? We’ll never know, but there is enough concern about mercury contamination in lighthouses to have made the Canadian Coast Guard take action. While only 10 of Canada’s 262 lighthouses still use the mercury system, there is enough residual mercury in many to make them out-of-bounds to the public.
Of course, you don’t have to be a lighthouse keeper to suffer the ill effects of mercury. Having a curious ten-year-old boy in the family can do it. In one specific instance, a member of this species somehow acquired a small vial of mercury and proceeded, for reasons known only to ten-year-old boys, to splatter it all over the living room. His mother duly swept up the mercury, discarded it, and thought the affair to be over. But it was only the beginning. Soon the boy’s fourteen-year-old sister developed a low-grade fever and began to exhibit uncharacteristic aggressive behavior. She complained of painful wrists, hands, and knees. Not only were the hands painful, but they also showed a red discoloration and peeling of the skin. It didn’t take long for the father to begin to show the same kinds of symptoms. The mother, on the other hand, was spared these particular problems, but developed kidney disease. Amazingly, the boy whose curiosity had unleashed the nightmare was totally unaffected. The complex of symptoms suggested mercury poisoning, which was confirmed by blood tests. Urine levels, paradoxically, showed wide swings in mercury content, casting some doubt on the validity of urine analysis for mercury toxicity. All three family members recovered, but before mercury levels in the air normalized, a new floor had to be laid, walls had to be replastered, and all furniture and carpets had to be thrown out. The boy was kept.
Mercury exposure can occur even without fledgling scientists. There is enough mercury in a thermometer to potentially cause a problem if it is broken. One such case involved a three-year-old boy who had to be admitted to hospital because of weight loss and difficulty walking. Blood tests revealed a high level of mercury, but its origin was a mystery. A toxicologist was finally sent to the family home and discovered mercury residues in the carpet in the boy’s room as well as in the vacuum cleaner. Apparently, a thermometer had been broken, and the remains were vacuumed up. That was the wrong thing to do. Vacuuming mercury just spreads the vapor through the air. Spills should be picked up with an eyedropper and placed in a sealed container, which should then be disposed of as hazardous waste. Although alcohol or digital thermometers may be more costly than the mercury variety, they are certainly preferable in terms of potential toxicity. No one would ever contemplate committing suicide with these. But that is exactly what a nineteen-year-old Manhattan resident planned to do with a mercury thermometer. Actually, she planned to use eight mercury thermometers.
She broke the thermometers, got hold of a syringe, and injected herself in the upper arm with the mercury. She lay down and waited to die. But it was in vain. Apparently she failed to hit any veins or arteries and developed only a large infected blotch on her arm, which eventually led her to a hospital. A plastic surgeon removed most of the mercury, but six months later, she still showed about 150 times the normal amount of mercury in her urine. Remarkably, she had no symptoms of mercury poisoning. If she wanted to kill herself, she should have inhaled the mercury. That works. Here’s the tragic proof.
Residents on a small street in Lincoln Park, Michigan, were awakened by the wail of sirens. Ambulance attendants rushed into a house and emerged with a sixty-eight-year-old man and his eighty-eight-year-old mother, both of whom were suffering from vicious nausea and diarrhea. By the time they arrived at the hospital, chest pain and labored breathing had set in. The next day the man’s son and daughter-in-law were struck the same way and also ended up in hospital. This clearly seemed to be some kind of environmental problem, so investigators were dispatched to the home. They were astounded by what they found. In the basement they discovered a crude lab with a furnace designed to melt metal. It turned out that the younger man had been working for a company that manufactured dental amalgam, the mix of mercury, silver, tin, and other metals used to fill cavities. He had stolen some of the amalgam, hoping to extract and sell the silver. Mercury, he knew, was volatile, and therefore could be evaporated off by heat. Indeed it could. In doses high enough to poison everyone in the house. In spite of efforts to rid their bodies of mercury with dimercaprol, an agent that binds the metal and causes it to be excreted, all four died within three weeks. The house was demolished and the debris treated as hazardous waste.
A sailor in Louisiana was luckier. He was asked to guard a boat in dry-dock that was having its bottom replaced. It seems the man liked to dabble in chemistry and had read about some scheme to transmute mercury into gold by baking it inside a potato. Whether out of boredom or greed, he decided to give it a try with an ounce of mercury and an Idaho potato. All he got was mercury poisoning. He then had the nerve to claim damages under the Jones Act, which covers hazards to which sailors are exposed aboard boats. But the judge denied him safe harbor because “the sailor was unable to support the proposition that the practice of alchemy is within the duties of a seaman who is acting as caretaker aboard a bottomless vessel.”