Mercury (Hg)
Liquid, Laxative, Lincoln ... and Lewis Carroll. (The Bus 1.22)
Welcome aboard The Bus!
The Stop
Flanked on one side by gold (Au) and on the other by thallium (Tl), mercury - also known as quicksilver - is the only elemental metal that is liquid at room temperature.1 Discovered sometime around 1500 BCE and eventually named after the planet Mercury, the element’s chemical symbol (Hg) is from hydragyrum, Latin for ‘water silver.’ To the ancients, mercury possessed what appeared to be magical properties, and for centuries it was used in various applications including metallurgy, medicine and millinery.2
Mercury dissolves both gold and silver, and one of its primary uses in the past was in the extraction of these metals from their ores. In addition, mercuric sulphide (otherwise known as vermilion) was a popular, high-grade bright red paint pigment frequently used by artists - and is thought (in the form of cinnabar) to have been used 30,000 years ago during the Palaeolithic period by painters to decorate caves in Spain and France.
Though the element has no known biological role, it is present in ‘every living thing and widespread in the environment.’ While traces of mercury are in ‘every mouthful of food we eat,’3 in high doses it is toxic. One form – methyl mercury – is particularly dangerous as it can accumulate in the flesh of oily fish such as tuna and be consumed by humans, making them ill.
Mercury poisoning occurs through inhaling the vapour, ingesting soluble compounds and/or absorbing it through the skin. Exposure to high doses of mercury harms the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, and immune system of people of all ages. High levels of methyl mercury in foetuses and young children irreversibly damages developing nervous systems, affecting the child’s ability to think and learn. But this is information we know about now; for centuries mercury was used in numerous ways - not least of which was as a primary component of medicines.
As they trekked across the unknown North American continent in 1804-1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition carried around 1300 ‘mercury laxatives, each four times the size of an aspirin, known as Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills.4 Also known as ‘Thunderbolts’ or ‘Blue Mass,’ by the mid-19th century these pills were a staple prescription for a ‘host of ailments, including apoplexy, worms, child-bearing, tuberculosis, toothaches … constipation’ - and melancholia, or depression.
In a 2001 article in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, medical historian Norbert Hirschhorn revealed his team’s ‘clinical suspicion’ that Abraham Lincoln experienced toxic neurological effects from these popular pills. As President during the U.S. Civil War, Lincoln was renowned for his ‘steady hand, patience, and wisdom,’ but before his election Lincoln ‘suffered certain effects from mercury poisoning.’ According to William H. Herndon, his law partner and biographer, in the 1850s Lincoln lived in a ‘a cave of gloom’ which became ‘impenetrable.’ To treat this melancholia, he was prescribed Blue Mass, which led him to ‘towering rages and outbursts of bizarre behaviour - jumping up suddenly and running out of the house for no reason,’ or suddenly erupting into ‘bursts of inappropriate laughter.’ During this time, Lincoln's rages were frightening: one contemporary described his angry face as ‘lurid with majestic and terrifying wrath,’ and another said he was ‘so angry that he looked like Lucifer in an uncontrollable rage.’ Once he stopped taking the mercury pills in 1861, his aberrant behaviour subsided and Lincoln became the statesman remembered by history.
Contemporary to its medical applications, Victorian-era milliners used a ‘bright orange mercury wash to separate fur from pelts.’ The result was that the ‘common hatters who dredged around in the steamy vats … gradually lost their hair and wits,’ the reason being that - although mercury in any form is toxic - its fumes are the worst: ‘they fray the … central nervous system and burn holes in the brain, much as advanced Alzheimer’s disease does.’ Therefore explaining the erratic behaviour of the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to an article from The Paris Review in which the author recreates the various decadent meals in Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac. In the original play, food plays an essential role - Rostand was a Symbolist and consequently everything in the text had deliberate meaning. In recent productions, and certainly when teaching the work, food is barely mentioned.5 As someone who really enjoys experimenting with food and cooking, I found this article very interesting. Give it a shot - and give cooking something different a shot, too!
Cooking with Cyrano de Bergerac
The Book
Today’s book is José Saramago’s Death at Intervals.6 Winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, the novel examines - in the author’s typically light touch that belies the profound questions under investigation - the nature of the intimate relationship between mortality and life. From the back: In an unnamed country on the first day of the new year, people stop dying. Amid the general public, there is great celebration: flags are hung out on balconies and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity - eternal life. Death is on strike. Soon though, the residents begin to suffer. For several months undertakers face bankruptcy, the church is forced to reinvent its doctrine, and local ‘maphia’ smuggle those on the brink of death over the border where they can expire naturally. Death does return eventually, but with a new courteous approach - delivering violet warning letters to her victims. But what can death do when a letter is unexpectedly returned?
Despite - or perhaps because - of its theme and preoccupations, the novel is fun, though certainly thought-provoking. Give it a try - you’ll never look at death the same way again
Here’s a contemporary review from The Guardian: Hold the Grim Reaper
Remember: You can buy Death at Intervals at Amazon, but you can also get it from your local bookstore. And that’s better for everyone.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is based - loosely - on mercury. Basically, they’re songs that remind me of liquid metal - of quicksilver - with possibly a breath of toxicity. They’re all instrumental, so hopefully the playlist is good background music at the least. All five tracks are great, but I find Boards of Canada’s Peacock Tail and Flying - a rare Beatles instrumental (off of Magical Mystery Tour) which is just too short - of particular note.
Enjoy - and please let me know what you think!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is an eponym.7 Pyrrho of Elis (c. 370-c.272 BCE) is considered the founder of ancient Scepticism. He believed ‘wise men’ were those who ‘suspend judgement and take no part in the controversy regarding the possibility of certain knowledge’ - that the reasons in favour of a belief are no better than those against it.8 An interesting thought in the first instance, but ultimately paralysing ….
“Pyrrhonism: Extreme or absolute scepticism.”
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this stop - I hope you enjoyed a brief diversion from your regular journey!
Thanks to everyone who subscribes - I genuinely appreciate your interest and support. If you like The Bus, please SHARE it with a friend or several hundred.
If you haven’t climbed aboard, please do!
Until the next stop …
For those who are interested, mercury’s atomic number is 80 and its atomic weight is 200.59. A liquid at room temperature, mercury freezes into a soft solid at -38.83C (-37.89F) and boils at 356.62C (673.91F).
Sources for today’s Stop are: National Geographic (2001), Mercury (Britannica), Mercury (RSC), Mercury (EPA), Kean, Sam. The Disappearing Spoon. London: Black Swan, 2011, and Gray, Theodore. The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal, 2009.
We are able to cope with this daily intake as it is <0.01 mg, equating to around 0.3 g over a lifetime.
So-named for their inventor, Dr. Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration of Independence) who’s go-to treatment for any illness, was a ‘mercury-chloride sludge administered orally … [to patients] until they drooled.’ Though it wasn’t uncommon that - after weeks or months of this treatment, ‘people’s teeth and hair fell out,’ by the time of the Expedition he had perfected his recipe and was able to produce the sludge in tablet form. Fun fact: archaeologists are able to track Lewis and Clark’s campsites by finding mercury deposits in the latrines they dug. Good stuff.
Full disclosure: I hate this play. As an English teacher in NC in the 1990s, I was required to teach it to every one of my 10th grade (Year 11 if you’re in the UK) classes. I found it contrived, dull and utterly devoid of interest … especially as in other classes I was teaching Heart of Darkness, Othello, Siddhartha, The Stranger - stories with almost endless depths to plumb, stories everyone should read. My advice is to not waste your time on Rostand - but the article about the food is great!
For a brief biography of Saramago, see: Jose Saramago
Two things I'm reminded of: when I was a kid, my father was a pharmacist. He used to bring home little dropper-bottles of mercury for my sister and me to play with! We rolled it around on the tabletop, had little battles with the rolling balls of mercury - scary to think about now!
Also, your Cyrano reference reminds me of a time when I showed Babette's Feast to a group at church, and everyone made and brought a plate of food to share that was featured in the movie. That was a memorable movie event.
Perhaps there’s been a slow, undetected mercury vapor emission from some volcanic source in the US over the past few years to account for our recent paroxysms of seeming national psychosis.