Do you know where the phrase “Mad as a Hatter” evolved?
Nevada may be known as the Silver State and produces 73% of the United States gold, but it is rich in other mining, including mercury. Native Americans used cinnabar (mercury sulfide) as a dye. Mercury mining started in the mid-1850s but boomed in the early 1900s through World War II.
I was thinking about what to focus on, and I thought of Mercury March. I remembered something about March Madness for some sport I don’t watch. It hit me, I couldn’t ask for a more fitting name than “March Mercury Madness.”
Erethism is better known as Mercury Madness. It is also the origin of the saying “Mad as a Hatter” and the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.
The disease and phrase evolved in the 19th-century hat-making industry, where they used mercury nitrate to process felt—a step called “carroting” that turned animal pelts into smooth, workable material. During the process, hatters inhaled mercury vapors and absorbed it through their skin. Mercury poisoning, or “mercurialism,” leads to social isolation, anxiety, tremors, anger, outbursts and psychosis.
Sadly, many of the symptoms are not reversible. Many miners ended up in places like the Nevada Insane Asylum.
I will focus on Nevada’s mercury mines for the first few weeks of March on Facebook. While some mercury mines were destroyed as superfund sites, many remain and have remaining structures and mills. Make sure to follow at Nevada Ghost Towns & Beyond.
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