Nathaniel Chapman - Jacob Bronowski TV - W A Hammond - Thomas Graham - Lipmann & Schelenz - Paul Gouda - Scott Tips - Jim Al-Khalili TV - Tonight TV - Mercury: Chasing the Quicksilver 2021 -
He, who for an ordinary cause, resigns the fate of his patient to mercury, is a vile enemy to the sick; and, if he is tolerably popular, will, in one successful season, have paved the way for the business of life, for he has enough to do, ever afterward, to stop the mercurial breach of the constitutions of his dilapidated patients. He has thrown himself in fearful proximity to death, and has now to fight him at arm’s length as long as the patient maintains a miserable existence. Nathaniel Chapman, cited Scribner ‘Treatment of Pneumonia and Croup’ & ‘The Medical World’ 1885
Sulphur and mercury are the two elements of which the alchemists thought the universe was composed. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 4/13: The Hidden Structure, BBC 1973
It seeming impossible in any other manner to properly restrict the use of this powerful agent [calomel, a mercury compound, mercurous chloride], it is directed that it be struck from the supply table, and that no further requisitions for this medicine be approved by Medical Directors ... Modern pathology has proved the impropriety of the use of mercury in very many of those diseases in which it was formerly unfailingly administered ... No doubt can exist that more harm has resulted from the misuse [of this agent], in the treatment of disease, than benefit from their proper administration. W A Hammond, Surgeon General’s advice Washington 4th May 1863
[Mercurial medicines] affect the human constitution in a peculiar manner, taking, so to speak, an iron grasp of all its systems, and penetrating even to the bones, by which they not only change the healthy action of its vessels, and general structure, but greatly impair and destroy its energies; so that their abuse is rarely overcome. When the tone of the stomach, intestines, or nervous system generally, has been once injured by this mineral ... it could seldom be restored. Thomas Graham, cited Beach ‘A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology and Health’
Mercury was known to the ancient Chinese and Hindus, and has been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 1500 or 1600 B.C. Dioscorides mentioned its preparation from cinnabar, while Pliny gave a method of purifying it by squeezing it through leather, and stated that it is poisonous. Earle R Caley has shown by quotations from Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, and the Leyden Papyrus of the third century A.D. that mercury has been known much longer than most persons realize. He states that cinnabar was probably the only mercury compound known to the ancients and that they used it both as a pigment and as a source of the metal. In his Metallurgic Chemistry, C E Gellert (1713-1795) stated that, ‘The only ore of mercury hitherto known is native cinnabar.’ The most ancient specimen of quicksilver known is probably that which H Schliemann found in a little coconut-shaped amulet in an Egyptian tomb at Kurna dating from the fifteenth or sixteenth century B.C. E O von Lippmann and H Schelenz, Geschichte der Pharmazie, 1904
Mercury dissolves many other metals such as gold and silver to form amalgams. Iron is an exception and iron flasks have been traditionally used to transfer mercury. Paul Gouda, Mercury Ultra Trace Analysis, 2013
Swine Flu vaccinations are an example of a huge mistake that’s going to be made, and is in the process of being made now. First of all, it’s a big lie. You know it has an incredibly low death rate. The death rate is higher from the injections, from the jabs, than it is from actually the swine flu itself ... They want to scare you into taking this jab. They try to tell you it’s harmless, but embedded in each of these jabs is a very dangerous neurotoxin – Mercury. Who’d want to inject Mercury into your body, your bloodstream? Scott Tips, Health Freedom, ‘The European Union and Codex Alimentarius’
Mercury is an incredible substance. It’s the only metal that’s liquid at room temperature. It’s also remarkably heavy ... Mercury: silvery and mirror-like. It one of the most beautiful and elusive of all the elements. It’s rarely found in its natural form. But heating a red rock, cinnabar, will reveal molten mercurial lava hidden within. Jim Al-Khalili, Chemistry: A Volatile History, BBC 2010
Tonight: are your fillings making you ill? Paying thousands to have the mercury banished from your mouth. Banned abroad but mainstream in Britain. Tonight: What’s in Your Mouth? ITV 2009
‘The largest source of mercury exposure for most people in developed countries is inhalation of mercury vapour from dental amalgam’. ibid. European Commission
‘Mercury is one of the top ten chemicals that pose a major threat to public health.’ Mercury: Chasing the Quicksilver, WHO, Vice TV 2021
Mercury is crucial to small-scale gold mining in South America. But increasing scrutiny of its health and environmental impacts in the Amazon is leading to its prohibition throughout the continent. ibid.
The underworld of mercury following its path from Guyana to neighbouring Surinam. ibid.
Twenty thousand kilos of mercury are legally imported into the Guyanese capital of Georgetown every year from the US, Russia, the UK and other countries. ibid.
Large quantities are also being imported by Chinese businessmen on the black market. ibid.
Mercury binds with flecks of gold to form an amalgam that’s easier to collect. ibid.
Mercury is often trafficked with gold and drugs over the same networks by the same smugglers. ibid.