3/24/2024 0 Comments History of mercury poisoningStrangely, the knowledge that mercury causes extensive neurological and gastrointestinal damage seems to have escaped medical practitioners from the 17 th through 19 th century in America. Ancient Romans sent their least valued citizens-slaves and criminals-to mercury mines, knowing that mercury poisoning would kill most in a brief period of time, sparing the need for formal execution. It’s not clear if Teotihuacan people understood the serious ramifications of mercury exposure. Daguerreotypes, which are also highly reflective, are sometimes called “mirrors with a memory.” Annabeth Headreck, a professor and expert on Teotihuacan and Mesoamerican art, hypothesizes that the silvery stream of mercury under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, might have looked like “an underworld river, not that different from the river Styx…the entrance to the underworld.” This is not surprising since mercury is so reflective that it’s mirror-like, and mirrors were (and are) considered a link to the supernatural world or portals through which souls can move in many cultures and religions. Mercury has been discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs, too. Substantial quantities of mercury have been found below Quetzalcoatl, the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, the third largest pyramid at Teotihuacan, a pre-Columbian site in Mexico. The ancient Chinese and Hindus knew about mercury, nicknamed quicksilver, the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, since at least 1500 B.C. But they weren’t the only ones who dabbled in the silvery element that has long been both beneficial and devastatingly dangerous. Daguerreotype-makers then were often amateur chemists since they needed an extensive knowledge of chemistry to create the fragile and time-consuming black-and-white images. The old photos in the novel are daguerreotypes, a popular type of photography in the mid-19th century that required the use of liquid mercury. The girls form a secret society to guard their exciting discovery, but it’s not long before their clandestine club turns-literally and figuratively-into a toxic bubble of lies, jealousy, and revenge. In the book a group of teen girls figures out a way to time travel in their dreams by way of liquid mercury, old photographs, and a little magic. I was surprised I hadn’t encountered Danbury’s history sooner, as I extensively researched the history of mercury while writing my new YA novel, Mercury Boys. Both the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland and the expression “mad as a hatter” originate from mercury poisoning. The hatmakers inhaled the toxic mercury vapors and eventually developed the Danbury Shakes: tremors, slurred speech, and, invariably, a descent into madness and death. Making felt for the hats involved a process called carroting, which used an orange-colored solution containing mercury nitrate to turn animal fur into felt. Many of its hatmakers had the “Danbury Shakes.” Neither dance craze nor ice cream drink, the Danbury Shakes was a medical symptom that the hatmakers developed after continuous exposure to mercury. Sadly, Danbury also had a darker reputation in the mid-19 th century. Recently I became aware that a town called Danbury, Connecticut, which is about a thirty-minute drive from my house, used to be known as the “hat city of the world” owing to the huge number of hatmakers who lived and worked there.
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