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The Silent Killer of the Periodic Table

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The Silent Killer of the Periodic Table ESSAI Volume 16 Article 17 Spring 2018 The iS lent Killer of the Periodic Table Axel Gallegos College of DuPage Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/essai Recommended Citation Gallegos, Axel (2018) "The iS lent Killer of the Periodic Table," ESSAI: Vol. 16 , Article 17. Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol16/iss1/17 This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in ESSAI by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Gallegos: The Silent Killer of the Periodic Table The Silent Killer of the Periodic Table by Axel Gallegos (Honors Chemistry 1551) ercury, the exquisitely beautiful killer of the periodic table. Situated comfortably within the 6th period and 12th group of the periodic table, the element mercury has an atomic number Mof 80 and the chemical symbol Hg, which comes from the Greek word hydrargyrum, meaning “liquid silver.” As its chemical symbol implies, mercury forms a mesmerizing silver liquid in its standard state with physical properties unlike any other; however, beneath mercury’s elegant and enticing appearance lies its most sinister attribute, its toxicity. This one fatal characteristic nearly phased out the once popular and widely used metal. Today, government regulations have nearly eradicated all applications of mercury due to health and safety concerns, reducing the metal and its unusual physical properties to nothing more than an odd trinket. Despite its recent opposition, mercury played an essential part in many different medicines around the globe, before the discovery of its poisonous effects. For centuries, people believed that mercury could cure any number of ailments, but in reality, these fictitious beliefs exposed them to mercury’s toxic effects, giving way to a silent killer. “Known to the ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Hindus,” mercury has a number of legends surrounding it (Sloane). Ancient alchemists believed that mercury lied at core of all metals, and by combining mercury with other substances, one could obtain gold, silver, copper, tin, and even lead. Although “different cultures had different beliefs,” every culture believed “that the correct combination of mercury and other ingredient would yield riches of gold” (Sloane). That belief carried over to 4th century China, where the “prominent Chinese alchemist [Ge] Hong […] believed that man is what he eats, so by eating gold any man could attain perfection” (Sloane); however, the average man cannot afford such a precious metal, so to combat this, Hong reasoned he could make gold from cinnabar, a toxic mercury sulfide mineral. Apart from these false promises of longevity and health, Hong also believed that smearing cinnabar on a person’s feet would enable them to walk on water, and that placing it over a door way would ward off thieves. Hong compiled his monumental work into the Baopuzi, an acclaimed Daoist text that ironically promoted immortality and transcendence through an elixir of life that contained cinnabar. The now debunked Baopuzi stands as a testament of ancient Chinese medicine and its flawed ideology. Mercury’s false connection to immortality did not begin with Hong. Myths surrounding mercury have some of their oldest roots in China. “Chinese legend tells of one Huang An, who prolonged his life for at least 10,000 years by eating” cinnabar (Ball). Countless others have tried to replicate this legend. Famous among them is China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Huang obsessed over the idea of immortally and had done all he could to become immortal. He frequently “consumed wine and honey laden with cinnabar thinking it would prolong his life” (Ball). Ironically, many have speculated that the irrational emperor might have hastened his death with these “elixirs”. What ancient Chinese alchemists saw as the key to eternal life, proved to be the main ingredient in a deadly poison. Despite Mercury’s clearly toxic properties, doctors continued to use the element for centuries. In the 1500s, following a wide spread European outbreak of the sexually transmitted disease syphilis, physicians would use mercury as an ointment to treat the disease. Ironically, patients that used the toxic ointment often got worse, which lead to a new form of treatment, “the tub”. This ineffective treatment would place the patient in a mercury vapor bath, today’s equivalent of a carbon 38 Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018 1 ESSAI, Vol. 16 [2018], Art. 17 monoxide bath. Unfortunately, Europeans continued to use these treatments “for over four centuries, but none provided a cure, despite claims at the time” (Barron). “For example, John Hunter, a doctor who gave himself syphilis by mistake, claimed he had been cured” by mercury, but later died of the same thing that supposedly cured him. People continued to believed these erroneous lies for a number of reasons. “Syphilis occurs in three phases, each with remission between the phases. The period of remission between secondary and tertiary phases” can last up to three years; therefore, during a remission period, it may appear that the mercury treatments have cured syphilis, but in reality, they have not (Barron). With advancements in medicine, these faulty practices quickly faded out, as knowledge of mercury’s poisonous effects slowly spread. Why did people believe that mercury had health benefits? And when did people realize that that the element that was supposed to keep them alive, actually brought them closer to death? In order to answer these questions, one must take a closer look at the origin of mercury’s chemical symbol, Hg. The oldest known record of mercury comes from an academic text dating back to sometime during the 4th century BCE. In the text, the famous, ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, referred to mercury as “fluid silver” and as “quicksilver”. Because of mercury’s unusual liquid properties, coupled with its alluring metallic appearance, Aristotle believed, like Ge Hung and many other alchemists, that mercury lied at core of all metals. Although every culture had their own myths surrounding mercury, they all stemmed from the same thing, mercury’s abstract physical properties. From alchemists to physicians, mercury’s unusual properties lead many to believe that mercury held amazing powers, such as health benefits; however, society would slowly discover what ill effects mercury had in store for them. It would take centuries for society to realize that mercury had effects. Chemists and physicians across history would study mercury and record its effects on humans. Published works detailing how fatal prolonged exposure to mercury and its vapors were to humans dotted the 19th and 20th centuries. “In 1889, Charcot, in his Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System, attributed some rapid oscillatory tremors to mercury exposure,” which were later expanded on by Wilson's classic textbook of neurology, published in 1940 (Olson). In the mid-1900s, Japan’s Minamata Bay became plagued by a new mysterious disease aptly named, the Minamata disease. Residents of the area reported tremors, sensory loss, ataxia, and visual field constriction. “In 1961, researchers in Japan correlated elevated urinary mercury levels with the features of the previously mysterious Minamata disease” soon realizing, that their mysterious new disease was actually mercury poisoning coming from the fish in the surrounding area (Olson). A nearby factory discharged inorganic mercury into the water, which made its way to the population through the aquatic life. It would take a few more years for society to adopt this new information and on “January 19, 2013, a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury” known as the Minamata Convention on Mercury, was agreed upon (Olson). Although it took centuries, the once these fictitious beliefs that exposed thousands, possibly millions, to a toxic silent killer were debunked and proven wrong. Today, mercury’s unusual physical properties continue to capture society’s attention, but from a reasonable distance. Works Cited Ball, Philip. “Flowing Rivers of Mercury.” Chemistry World, THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CHEMISTRY, 6 Jan. 2015, www.chemistryworld.com/feature/flowing-rivers-of- mercury/8122.article. 39 https://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol16/iss1/17 2 Gallegos: The Silent Killer of the Periodic Table Barron, Andrew R. “The Myth, Reality, and History of Mercury Toxicity.” OpenStax CNX, Rice University, cnx.org/contents/-yJE1DIQ@5/The-Myth-Reality-and-History-o. Czaika, Ellen, and Bethanie Edwards. “History of Mercury Use in Products and Processes.” Mercury Science and Policy at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 Jan. 2013, mercurypolicy.scripts.mit.edu/blog/?p=367. Olson, David A. “Mercury Toxicity.” Medscape, WebMD LLC., emedicine.medscape.com/article/1175560-overview#a3. Sloane, Julie. “Mercury: Element of the Ancients.” Mercury: Element of the Ancients – Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program, Trustees of Dartmouth College, 26 July 2016, www.dartmouth.edu/~toxmetal/mercury/history.html. The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Ge Hong.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 16 June 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Ge-Hong. 40 Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2018 3.
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