WHAT IS MERCURY POISONING?
You don't have to look up a medical dictionary to discover just how poisonous mercury is. Most articles about mercury, the element, will tell you that:
· Mercury has the symbol, Hg, atomic No. 80, atomic weight 200.59 and is a silvery white metallic element that is a liquid at room temperature. It is mainly found in the natural environment as cinnabar ore and it alloys easily with other metals;
· Both organic and inorganic mercury are dangerous but have many important uses, that methyl mercury is a lethal pollutant found in rivers and lakes, that mercury is a volatile element which vapourizes easily into an odourless and colourless gas and dangerous levels of mercury vapour can occur rapidly; and
· Mercury is very, very toxic and must be handled with extreme care.
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