![]() Early signs of the mad hatter syndrome they would later develop included losing teeth, trembling and mood swings, but could extend to hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia.Want to experience the greatest in board studying? Check out our interactive question bank podcast- the FIRST of its kind here: Hat makers steaming their mercury-nitrate-infused felt hats would then breathe in vapors of the compound, exposing them to mercury that accumulated across their careers. This orange substance – which gave the process its name carroting – wasn’t too harmful until it was time to shape the hat’s felt using steam. The discovery led to hatmakers cutting out the middleman (quite literally), forgoing wee in favor of mercury nitrate. Hat Realm reports that among them, one wee-wielding hat maker appeared to churn out finer felt than his competitors, and it was later revealed he was taking a mercury compound to treat syphilis. It seems the felt hat making industry had a history of opting for unusual substances in their craft, as when the trend reached France, makers ditched camel urine – something that was commonplace among hatters elsewhere – in favor of their own piss. Felt hat makers would use mercury nitrate – Hg(NO?)? – for the process, known as secretage or carroting, and it was used in this way for around a century. Mercury was a key ingredient in the art of felt hat making as it could toughen animal fur fibers, allowing them to matt together more robustly for a firmer hat. Image credit: By ? - Own work, Public Domain via Wikimedia commons Why did hat makers get mad hatter syndrome? “With his extraordinary ability to observe and portray the oddities of human behavior and his interest in clinical matters I would expect him to describe with great accuracy the type of madness found in these unfortunate people, which he seems to me to have done.” Mercury got into the air when hat makers steamed their felt creations. “He shakes so much that both his shoes fall off, and he certainly shows excessive timidity, diffidence, loss of confidence, and anxiety, to such an extent that he bites a piece out of his cup instead of the bread and butter.” #Mad as a hatter trial#“Erethism and hatters' shakes are surely in evidence when appears as a witness at the trial of the Knave of Hearts,” wrote Price. Instead, the author suggests, it’s possible he may have had first-hand experience of a real-life worker with mad hatter syndrome. While Carroll was well-read in matters of medicine, as detailed in a 1984 BMJ correspondence from TML Price titled “Did the Mad Hatter have mercury poisoning?”, it seems unlikely that he knew about the risk of mercury poisoning for hatters. However, as doctors' understanding of mercury poisoning grew, they became more familiar with the tell-tale symptoms of the neurological disorder erethismus mercurialis, which would later become known as mad hatter disease or mad hatter syndrome. Inhalational mercury poisoning was first reported in medicine before Lewis Carrol penned " Hatta" in Through the Looking-Glass, but its connection to hat making wouldn't be established until sometime later. However, as a potent neurotoxin, it also presents many hazards to those who work with it. The element mercury has many uses for humans, including gilding ( S-Town listeners may remember this), purifying gold, and – you guessed it – hat making. Advertisement What is mad hatter syndrome? ![]()
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