Re: Mercury and lead

--- In cybalist@..., Omar Karamán <diogenes@...> wrote:

> Torsten,
>
> It is not the first time that you talks about mercury and its

strange

> consequences. Today you are joking again, don't you?
>
> > 3. Another picture in National Geographic: a diving expedition to

a

> > Spanish galleon: broken clay containers of mercury. Mercury

spilling

> > out on the sea bottom. Spain transported 150 tons of mercury each
> > year to the New World (from Spain and the Philippines). One broken
> > container and mercury would spill out in the ship sailing for

months

> > in the tropics. Without a thorough clean-up (which they most

likely

> > didn't do, there's no record of it) anybody sleeping below deck

would

> > become brain-damaged, deranged and stark raving mad. As to the
> > behavior of the Spanish, I don't think I have to comment on that.

The

> > mercury was used in the gold mines, mercury in a gold pan would
> > amalgamate the gold specks, and then mercury was gotten rid of by
> > heating to evaporation. Anybody's guess how that affected the
> > panners. This happened especially in Mexico, Colombia and Peru.
>
> Am I wrong, or perhaps you are trying to associate it with Mexican,
> Colombian and Peruvian guerrillas?
>

Imagine a landscape where everybody and his body is sloshing mercury
around in the rivers. What do you think that would have done to the
immune systems of the various indigenous peoples using those rivers?
Probably the same as what is happening today to the peoples of the
Amazonas, being poisoned by the same kind of gold panners, although
on a much smaller scale than then.

>
> > 6. The "first" emperor Chin, famous for his cruelty, was buried

with

> > a landscape, in which the rivers were mercury.
>
> Touché! Your mercury has nothing to do here because the emperor was
> close to mercury _after_ his death...

Good point. But what I thought was that such a negligence with
respect to the dangers of mercury vapors would be indicative of the
chemical environment that the emperor lived in. Surely this was not
the first landscape model in the king's life.
Compare with Ludwig II of Bavaria. He loved mirrored walls in his
castles. Mirrors then were made by fixating mercury to glass. They
were left to drip dry. Sleep in hall of such mirrors and you go stark
raving mad. Which Ludwig did.

> Now please tell me whether Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Idi

Amin,

> etc. were fed with mercury.
> (Some historical, political and economical readings may be useful

if you

> want to occupy your leisure hours).

Actually I have read some historical, political and economical stuff,
but also toxicological. I know that Hitler used Calomel (HgCl2)
enemas, which at that time, because of the low solubility of Calomel,
was considered safe for someone with a healthy intestinal system,
which Hitler definitely didn't have.
In a book I found a clinical advice to doctors: If you find 1)
Intestinal complaints and 2) Neurological problems combined, you
should consider a diagnosis of mercury poisoning. Hitler had both. So
had Himmler (consider Kersten, his personal masseur).

As for the other nice fellows, I don't have a clue (yet, because I
haven't investigated it). Lenin had extensive calcification of the
veins in his brain, something that can be provoked in makaques by
feeding them mercury.

>

Torsten