mercury poisoning, tissue damage resulting from exposure to more than trace amounts of the element mercury or its compounds. Elemental mercury (the silver liquid familiar from thermometers) is the most common occupational source. Exposure typically comes from inhaling mercury vapors. Inorganic salts of mercury (e.g., mercurous chloride, or calomel) are used in some products to inhibit the growth of fungi and bacteria. Organic mercury compounds, especially methylmercury, are more toxic than other forms because they easily cross cell membranes. They are most often ingested in contaminated fish.

Mercury poisoning can cause severe neurological and kidney damage. Acute exposure can affect the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Organic mercury can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause irreversible nervous system and brain damage, e.g., loss of motor control, numbness in limbs, blindness, and inability to speak. Some studies have connected maternal mercury exposure to fetal damage. Mercury poisoning can be confirmed by urine tests. Chelation therapy is used for poisoning with elemental mercury and mercury salts; there is no treatment for organic mercury poisoning.

Mercury has become an environmental pollutant in areas where eroding mercury-bearing rock or agricultural and industrial wastes containing the metal escape or are discharged into waterways. Mercury also is released into the atmosphere when coal is burned. Elemental mercury and mercury salts, although fairly inert when deposited on the bottom of waterways, are converted into organic mercury, typically methylmercury, by microorganisms. This compound then enters the food chain where it is biomagnified up to 100,000 times in predacious fish. Consumption of toxic fish and of game birds and mammals that feed on fish is the main risk to humans. Minamata disease was named after the occurrence, in the 1950s and 1960s in Minamata, Japan, of many cases of severe mercury poisoning. It was found that a chemicals factory was discharging mercury-containing wastes into the local waters, contaminating fish that residents caught for food.

Mercury has long been known to be toxic; the phrase "mad as a hatter" refers to the 19th-century occupational disease that resulted from prolonged contact with the mercury used in the manufacture of felt hats. Some workers today, especially laboratory technicians, nurses, and machine operators, continue to be exposed to mercury on the job. Most mercury pesticides have been withdrawn from the U.S. market, and many countries banned ocean dumping of mercury and other pollutants in 1972. Production of mercury-containing interior and exterior paints in the United States was phased out in 1991. Mercury, which has been used in medicines for hundreds of years, continues to be used in dental amalgams and various medicaments that deliver minimal exposures. Most other medical uses have been banned or are being phased out, but mercury use in industry is increasing.

See also water pollution.

mercury or quicksilver [from the Roman god Mercury], metallic chemical element; symbol Hg [Lat. hydrargyrum=liquid silver]; at. no. 80; at. wt. 200.59; m.p. -38.842°C;; b.p. 356.58°C;; sp. gr. 13.55 at 20°C;; valence +1 or +2. Mercury was discovered in antiquity, and was known to the ancient Chinese, Hindus, and Egyptians, but was not recognized as an element. It was used as a medicine by Paracelsus. It was first recognized as a chemical element (in the modern sense) by A. L. Lavoisier about the end of the 18th cent.

Properties

Mercury is the only common metal existing as a liquid at ordinary temperatures. The pure metal has a silver-white mirrorlike appearance. Mercury is below cadmium in Group 2 of the periodic table. It is relatively stable in dry air, but in moist air slowly forms a gray oxide coating. Mercury has high surface tension; when spilled, it breaks up into tiny beads which often become lodged in cracks.

Compounds

Mercury forms numerous compounds, assuming +1 valence in mercurous compounds and +2 valence in mercuric compounds. Mercury is not attacked by dilute hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. It reacts with hot nitric acid to form mercuric nitrate, Hg(No₃)₂. An excess of mercury reacts with nitric acid to form mercurous nitrate, HgNO₃. Mercury reacts with hot concentrated sulfuric acid to form mercuric sulfate, HgSO₄; with excess mercury, mercurous sulfate, Hg₂SO₄, is formed. Mercury reacts directly with the halogens to form mercuric salts. At elevated temperatures mercury reacts slowly with oxygen to form mercuric oxide, HgO. A mercurous oxide may be formed chemically but is unstable, decomposing to a mixture of mercury and mercuric oxide.

Natural Occurrence and Uses

Mercury occurs uncombined in nature to a limited extent. The metal is obtained commercially from cinnabar, a mercuric sulfide ore; it is easily separated by roasting the ore in air. The metal is usually purified by repeated vacuum distillation.

Mercury metal has many uses. Because of its high density, it is used in barometers and manometers. Because it has a high rate of thermal expansion that is fairly constant over a wide temperature range, it is used extensively in thermometers. Mercury is important as a liquid contact material for electric switches. It is used in mercury-vapor lamps, which emit light rich in ultraviolet radiation; various kinds of such lamps are used for street lighting, as sun lamps, and in "black lights" (see lighting). Mercury is used as an electrode in the production of chlorine and sodium hydroxide. It is also used in certain electric batteries. With some other metals mercury forms a special type of alloy called an amalgam; a special amalgam (mostly mercury, silver, and tin) is used in dentistry for filling teeth.

Mercury compounds have many uses. Calomel (mercurous chloride, Hg₂Cl₂) is used as a standard in electrochemical measurements and in medicine as a purgative. Mercuric chloride (corrosive sublimate, HgCl₂) is used as an insecticide, in rat poison, and as a disinfectant. Mercuric oxide is used in skin ointments. Mercuric sulfate is used as a catalyst in organic chemistry. Vermilion, a red pigment, is mercuric sulfide; another crystalline form of the sulfide (also used as a pigment) is black. Mercury fulminate, Hg(CNO)₂, is used as a detonator. Mercury forms many organic compounds. Mercurochrome (in 2% aqueous solution) is used in medicine as a topical antiseptic. Mercury compounds were formerly used in the treatment of syphilis.

See also mercury poisoning.

Atomic Number:	Atomic Number: 80
Atomic Symbol:	Atomic Symbol: Hg
	Name of Element: Mercury
Atomic Weight:	Atomic Weight: 200.59
Electron Configuration:	Electron Configuration: 2 · 8 · 1832 · 18 · 2

Mercury space program: see space exploration.

Mercury, in astronomy, nearest planet to the sun, at a mean distance of 36 million mi (58 million km); its period of revolution is 88 days. Mercury passes through phases similar to those of the moon as it completes each revolution about the sun, although the visible disk varies in size with respect to its distance from the earth. Because its greatest elongation is 28°, it is seen only for a short time after sunset or before sunrise. Since observation of Mercury is particularly unfavorable when it is near the horizon, the planet has often been studied in full daylight, with the sun's light blocked off. Mercury has the most elliptic orbit of the planets in the solar system. Its great eccentricity of orbit and its great orbital speed provided one of the important tests of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Mercury's perihelion (its closest point to the sun) is observed to advance by 43″ each century more than can be explained from planetary perturbations using Newton's theory of gravitation, yet in nearly exact agreement with the prediction of the general theory. Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system, having a diameter of about 3,000 mi (4,800 km); both Jupiter's moon Ganymede and Saturn's moon Titan are larger. Its mean density is comparable to that of the earth. Its small mass and proximity to the sun prevent it from having an appreciable atmosphere, although a slight amount of carbon dioxide has been detected. The surface of Mercury is much like that of the moon, as was shown during the Mariner 10 spacecraft flyby in 1974 and the Messenger flyby in 2008. Most of its craters were formed during a period of heavy bombardment by small asteroids early in the solar system's history. The Messenger space probe also found evidence of volcanism. It was long thought that Mercury's period of rotation on its axis was identical to its period of revolution, so that the same side of the planet always faced the sun. However, radar studies in 1965 showed a period of rotation of 58.6 days. This results in periods of daylight and night of 90 earth days each, with the daylight temperatures reaching as high as 800°F; (450°C;). Night temperatures are believed to drop as low as -300°F; (-184°C;).

Mercury, in Roman religion, god of commerce and messenger of the gods; identified with the Greek Hermes. He was honored at the Mercuralia, a festival held in May and attended primarily by traders and merchants.

Harmful effects of mercury compounds. Manufacture of paints, various household items, and pesticides uses mercury; the finished product and the waste products released into air and water may contain mercury. The aquatic food chain can concentrate organic mercury compounds in fish and seafood, which, if eaten by humans, can affect the central nervous system, impairing muscle, vision, and cerebral function, leading to paralysis and sometimes death (see Minamata disease). Acute mercury poisoning causes severe digestive-tract inflammation. Mercury accumulates in the kidneys, causing uremia and death. Chronic poisoning, from occupational inhalation or skin absorption, causes metallic taste, oral inflammation, blue gum line, extremity pain and tremor, weight loss, and mental changes (depression and withdrawal). Drugs containing mercury can cause sensitivity reactions, sometimes fatal. In young children, acrodynia (pink disease) is probably caused by an organic mercury compound in house paints.

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or quicksilver

Metallic chemical element, chemical symbol Hg, atomic number 80. Mercury is the only elemental metal that is liquid at ordinary temperatures, with a freezing point of −38 °F (−39 °C) and a boiling point of 674 °F (356.9 °C). Silvery white, dense, toxic (see mercury poisoning), and a good conductor of electricity, mercury is occasionally found free in nature but usually occurs as the red sulfide ore, cinnabar (HgS). It has many uses—in dental and industrial amalgams, as a catalyst, in electrical and measuring apparatus and instruments (e.g., thermometers), as the cathode in electrolytic cells, in mercury-vapour lamps, and as a coolant and neutron absorber in nuclear power plants. Many of mercury's compounds, in which it has valence 1 or 2, are pigments, pesticides, and medicinals. It is a dangerous pollutant because it concentrates in animal tissues in increasing amounts up the food chain.

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First series of U.S. manned spaceflights (1961–63), which began about three weeks after Yury A. Gagarin became the first human in space. In May 1961 Alan B. Shepard rode the first Mercury space capsule, Freedom 7, on a 15-minute, 302-mi (486-km) suborbital flight, attaining a maximum altitude of 116 mi (186 km). The first U.S. manned flight in orbit was that of the Friendship 7, carrying John H. Glenn, Jr., in February 1962; it completed three orbits. The last Mercury flight, Faith 7, launched in May 1963, was the longest, making 22 orbits in about 34 hours.

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