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Jdurg
Hazard to Others
Posts: 220
Registered: 10-6-2006
Location: Connecticut, USA
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Mood: No Mood
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Quote: Originally posted by entropy51  | I have no experience with the alkylmercury cmpds, but lots with the metal.
Now I'm very cautious about Hg, and I work so that any spill will be contained. I keep the metal under water, hoping that cuts down on surface
vaporization.
But Hg must not be as toxic as everyone thinks. Years ago I worked in a lab where we did gasometric analysis with elaborate glassware filled with Hg.
Someone was always raising a leveling bulb too rapidly and breaking a stopcock clean off the top of the gas burette. A stream of Hg would go flying.
NONE of this was in a hood. We cleaned the Hg by swishing it around in a big steel basin of soapy water with ungloved hands. This was not an
atypical situation in those days and no one got sick. Many others can tell similar stories of days gone by.
And of course kids were forever bringing Hg to school and almalgamating pennies with it and everything else imaginable. Nowadays that's a major
HAZMAT. Didn't seem to hurt us.
So like I said, I'm very careful nowadays and I fear spills greatly. But I think the hazards are over-rated. I'm much more fearful of soluble Pb
cmpds. |
Well, in the past people also worked with asbestos without much ventillation at all, and also doctors used to prescribe thalidomide to pregnant women,
the Bayer Corporation mass-marketed diacetylmorphine (heroin) as a cough suprresant, and when radioactivity was first discovered people thought it was
a healing agent and that it posed no harm whatsoever. Just because we used to do things one way doesn't mean it was the safest thing to do. In many
cases, the information about the safety of a compound just wasn't available.
For the people you speak of who worked with mercury, talk to them again in about twenty or thirty years to see if there are any issues. The damages
that Hg causes typically aren't immediately shown unless there is an acute exposure to a toxic amount. (Such as you saw with hat-makers way back in
the day who were exposed to great amounts of Hg in a short period of time).
There is a good chance, because it was inorganic mercury, that those individuals won't exhibit any signs of damage from it. However, if it was just a
few years ago then it is far too early to say that it was, or wasn't, damaging to them.
\"A real fart is beefy, has a density greater than or equal to the air surrounding it, consists of the unmistakable scent of broccoli, and usually
requires wiping afterwards.\"
http://maddox.xmission.com. |
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entropy51
Gone, but not forgotten
Posts: 1612
Registered: 30-5-2009
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Mood: Fissile
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"Just because we used to do things one way doesn't mean it was the safest thing to do. " I never said it was safe! I said the hazards are
over-rated.
"For the people you speak of who worked with mercury, talk to them again in about twenty or thirty years to see if there are any issues"
Funny you mention that. The events I related happened in 1967 to 1971. We're all just fine, forty years later.
Also funny that you should mention asbestos. My Organic professor told the story of how he stirred up thousands of beakers of asbestos flakes into
filters during his grad school days and laughed about how that wouldn't have been allowed then (1978). He's still kicking and must be at least 90
years old.
Don't get me wrong. I said I'm very careful with Hg now and I am.
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