When mercury was introduced into the process of hat making in the 17th century, it became a notoriously dangerous profession.
The symptoms of ‘mercurialism‘ (mercury poisoning) evoked terms such as ‘the hatters’ shakes’ and ‘mad as a hatter’ into everyday speech.
Mercury poisoning became so common among the hatters in Victorian Britain that it has become widely supposed that Lewis Carroll had the condition in mind when he invented the character of the Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
In fact, according to H A Waldron, senior lecturer at the Centenary Institute of Occupational Health, London and Hygiene School of Tropical Medicine, the model for the Mad Hatter was almost certainly a furniture dealer called Theophilus Carter, who lived near Oxford and was well known to Carroll, a lecturer in mathematics at Christ Church. Carter was actually known in the locality as the Mad Hatterbecause of his eccentric ideas and because he was in the habit always of wearing a top hat.
Today’s equivalent of the Mad Hatter would appear to be the policy makers that have pushed for the mandatory introduction of compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to replace normal incandescent lighting.
Although CFLs last up to 15 times longer than ordinary bulbs, there is an environmental price to pay. Each bulb contains around 5mg of mercury, which helps convert the electrical current into light.The amount of mercury is tiny – barely enough to cover the tip of a pen – but that is enough to contaminate up to 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels.....
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