Development of Mercury Calibration Gases for Mercury CEMS

In Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland he introduced us to a character known as the Mad Hatter. Although Carroll’s Mad Hatter was fictional, the strange and unpredictable behaviour he displayed was not uncommon among people employed in the felt hat industry in the 1800s. The felting process used mercury nitrate and the constant exposure to the chemical eventually caused the hatters to develop mercury poisoning. The relationship between mercury poisoning and the hatters’ behaviour was not understood at the time, but the term “mad as a hatter” was in common usage.