THE TOXICOLOGY OF INORGANIC MERCURY

In this paper an attempt will be made to cover briefly the more important effects of metallic mercury and of some of its inorganic compounds on the human organism. The pharmacology of inorganic mercury and its medicinal uses are covered by other contributions to this monograph. Even though compounds of organic mercury are of increasing importance as occupational health hazards, they do not fall within the scope of the present paper and, in any case, they are dealt with elsewhere in these pages. Today human poisoning due to inorganic mercury is almost entirely accidental; rarely is it intentional. Not so many years ago a popular method adopted by those who wanted “to end it all” was to swallow several tablets of bichloride of mercury. Usually this produced the desired result, but in a somewhat unpleasant manner. The study of such cases yielded most of the existing information on acute human poisoning due to inorganic mercury. Other cases of severe or fatal poisoning have occurred following the use of mercuric chloride as a douche, as an antiseptic, and in other medicinal applications. Less serious poisoning was not uncommon when inorganic mercurials were widely used in the treatment of syphilis. Occupational poisoning due to inorganic mercury is usually, but not entirely, of the chronic type.