[[So .... what is mercury poisoning anyway because I CERTAINLY did it to myself around 1957 or 8 .]]
The poisoning happens when you burn the murcury off to retrieve the gold you are using it to extract- gold miners were the ones who experienced the poisoning, and it was terrible- saw a video of a man poisoned- he was very pathetic looking healthwise-
just to add- miners would put the mercury in their gold pans to engulf the small flake gold that they couldn’t get easily just by panning and picking the plinkers out- the fines were tougher to separate from the sand- so they woudl use the mercury as the two metals are attracted to each other- then they’d burn off the mercury, and just the gold would be left
Not sure you can get mercury poisoning just from handling it- but not entirely sure- i think it has to be inhaled
IIRC, Merriweather Lewis applied mercury to some of the members of the expedition when they caught the clap from native chicks on their way back after reaching the Pacific.