Re: Mercury

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Davetracer@xxxxxxx 

I think the discussion of mercury possibly having an effect on Tesla 
is quite interesting.

I was curious as to just when mercury was banned. Here is what 
Wikipedia said, under "mercury":

------------------
Its use resulted in widespread cases of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning>mercury poisoning 
among hatters. Symptoms included 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremor>tremors, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_lability>emotional lability, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia>insomnia, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia>dementia and 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination>hallucinations. The 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Public_Health_Service>United 
States Public Health Service banned the use of mercury in the felt 
industry in December 1941.
-----------------
This information from Wikipedia 3/8/2006.


Of course, Tesla died in 1943.


While I have enormous respect for what Tesla accomplished -- I don't 
think we would have our present A/C distribution system without him, 
for example -- I think it is possible that mercury, and possibly 
extremely high electric fields we all know, had effects on him.

    -- thanks,

    Dave Small