Hatter syndrome

The hatter's syndrome is a mercury poisoning that often occurred in the 18th century in professional groups who dealt with mercury , which was still considered harmless at the time, on a daily basis .

The English expression mad as a hatter ("crazy as a hatter") could be traced back to their use of felts and skins treated with mercury salts . Another affected occupational group in the 19th century were lighthouse keepers who worked unprotected at rotating lights mounted on mercury .

Symptoms

Symptoms of the poisoning were: inflammation , nerve damage, restlessness, the organs were attacked and the intelligence of those affected decreased. As a form of erethism , one speaks of erethism mercurialis .

Occurrence in literature

In the children's book Alice in Wonderland ( Lewis Carrol , 1865), the main character Alice meets the so-called mad hatter .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ronald A. Hites, Jonathan D. Raff: Environmental chemistry: An introduction with tasks and solutions . Wiley, 2017, ISBN 978-3-527-67297-4 , pp. 135 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
2. ^ David Mikkelson: Etymology of Mad As a Hatter. In: Snopes.com. May 18, 2010, Retrieved August 15, 2020 (American English). 
3. ↑ Peter Williams: Beacon over the surf . Busse Seewald, Herford 2002, ISBN 3-512-03255-9 , p. 102 .
4. ↑ Burkhard Straßmann: Mercury: Incredibly poisonous . In: The time . No. 3 , 2016 ( Zeit Online [accessed August 14, 2020]).

This article is about a health issue. It is not used for self-diagnosis and does not replace a diagnosis by a doctor. Please note the information on health issues !