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Mercury
From WikiVerde
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Quicksilver: Beautiful and Dangerous
Mercury is such a beautiful element, shining silver and delightfully fluid. It’s used for many purposes, such as in medicines, thermometers, batteries, bulbs, barometers, blood pressure and other instruments. But exposure to mercury can have decidedly unpleasant effects, on both animals as well as humans.
Contact with even a little mercury, if it is sustained over a length of time, can damage organs like the lungs, kidney and brain, and can even damage a developing embryo. Children are particularly vulnerable to mercury poisoning. Exposure to large amounts of this metal can be detrimental to health, causing problems like behavioural changes, fatigue, lack of appetite and insomnia almost immediately. Mercury can also be the cause of abdominal cramps, irritation of the eye, skin rashes, nausea, weight loss, and muscular tremors and atrophy, and mental problems like irritability, nervousness, mood swings and so on. Although when mercury exposure ceases, most ill effects gradually disappear, some effects are more permanent like those on the brain and nervous system. It takes several weeks for mercury to leave the body naturally, by excretion.
Ways of Contamination
There are three ways in which mercury poisoning can happen – direct skin contact with mercury, inhalation of mercury vapours and ingestion of mercury-contaminated food or water. The last method is the least harmful, since the digestive process eliminates most of the poison. The effects of skin contact are felt more, where there is a break or cut in the skin. Vapours are easily absorbed by the lungs, and can be especially harmful in warm, ill-ventilated spaces.
Where Mercury Hurts
Let’s look at some of the harmful effects that mercury has on specific parts of the body.
In addition to the effects mentioned above, mercury can also harm the nervous system by causing the person to suffer personality changes, hallucinations, diarrhoea, weight loss and weakness.
The kidneys can be damaged by extensive exposure to mercury. This damage can be undone when exposure ceases. Lungs are severely affected, resulting in symptoms like shortness of breath, accumulation of fluid or pulmonary edema and chest pain.
Parts of your mouth and gums can become inflamed and excess saliva is produced. Eye lenses may change colour, becoming brownish. Contamination of the skin causes further exposure to mercury since a rash forms, allowing greater skin assimilation of the poison.
Mercury Compounds
In combination with other elements, mercury can still be damaging. Absorption of both organic and inorganic mercury compounds take place through the gastrointestinal tract. Inorganic mercury, in large quantities, can damage the nervous system, kidneys and the gastrointestinal tract itself. It is more easily taken into the body than an organic mercury compound, and causes dermatitis, mood swings, rashes, memory loss and muscle weakness.
Methylmercury, an organic compound, often found in contaminated fish and shellfish, can be severely detrimental to health. In young humans, neurological development is impaired with harmful effects on memory, cognition, attention, and spatial and fine motor skills. Adults may be subject to unpleasant sensations, damage to peripheral vision, poor coordination, speech and hearing impairment and movement problems due to muscular damage. The widespread presence of methylmercury in our environment is indicated by the fact that most people have at least traces of the compound in their bodies. The extent of damage caused depends on the duration and intensity of exposure and the age and general health of the person exposed to methylmercury contamination.
Medical help is required when one is exposed to contamination by mercury compounds.
Be Careful With Mercury
There are ways to reduce the risks inherent in being exposed to mercury. If mercury is a part of your work, take the following steps to protect your health from this silent killer. Make sure you wear the required protective clothing such as gloves and use a respirator if possible. Keep your work and street clothes strictly separate and get mercury traces of your work clothes with a mercury vacuum. Don’t take your work clothes home to clean. Shower after work, to reduce chances of mercury contamination. Report spills and suspected health problems immediately to the relevant authorities.
At home, don’t store mercury. Be careful when you’re using a mercury thermometer to avoid breakage and mercury spills. Ensure you clean up properly incase there is a spill in your home. Take precaution when eating fish or shellfish. Avoid products which contain mercury, but if you have to use them, do so in a well-aired area.
How Do I Know If I’m Being Exposed to Mercury?
The amount of mercury in a person’s body can be analysed from blood, urine and hair samples. Long-term exposure is determined through urine tests, while recent contamination is tested by analysis of blood samples.
Precautions To Take After A Mercury Spill
Whether a spill is a small or large one, the dangers of exposure and contamination should never be ignored.
If you have been contaminated by mercury, move away from the source at once, unless, of course, you are part of the damage control team.
Make sure that air is circulating in the region of the spill by opening doors and windows wide. Never use a vacuum cleaner to clear a mercury spill – the vacuum action will dissipate the vapors around a larger area, while small drops of mercury will deposit themselves everywhere, making the chance of exposure and contamination much higher. Another way of preventing the mercury from spreading over a larger area is to take off shoes and clothing that are likely to pick up the mercury and carry it elsewhere. Such items should be kept safely in a sealed plastic bag – get rid of these later, appropriately.
You can try to gather the mercury with the help of sticky tape or an eye dropper, in the case of small spills. Store it carefully in a sealed container. You can also get a mercury cleanup kit containing zinc or sulphur, and use it to bind mercury remnants together so that they can be collected easily. Complete your cleaning operation with a detergent wash and a fresh water rinse of the area. If materials like carpets are contaminated, get rid of them immediately in a safe manner.
References
http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0073.htm
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/criteria/methylmercury/index.html.
