Re: The Einstein Effect

On 08/01/2025 14:55, Don wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:

Cursitor Doom wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
>

OTOH his alchemical interests meant breathing mercury fumes and other
noxious gasses from time to time probably didn't help either.

>
ISTR inhaling mercury fumes was a 'cure' for constipation in those days.
Supposedly. Not terribly effective and with possible side-effects that
today would be unacceptable to say the least.

>
Not quite. Drinking a small amount as liquid metal was though and had
been used since Roman times. Possibly better than the alternatives.
>
Before antibiotics it was also used as a dangerous "cure" for syphilis.
>
https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/opinion/syphilis-and-the-use-of-mercury
>
Calomel as mercurous chloride did slightly work for some skin infections
but soluble mercury salts are all deadly poisonous.
>
Breathing mercury fumes makes you go mad - hence the Mad Hatter's Tea
Party in Alice in Wonderland. World's largest zenith telescope in Canada
used a spinning mercury mirror (it self passivates with an oxide coat so
isn't anything like as dangerous as it sounds).
>
https://interestingengineering.com/science/largest-liquid-mirror-telescope-earth-large-zenith

 Many medicines are poisonous, chirally modified to make them less
potent.
      In drug development, enantiomeric selection to maximize
     clinical effects or mitigate drug toxicity has yielded
     both success and failure.
      <https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article-abstract/110/1/4/1668162>

The dose always makes the poison. Some very effective drugs don't have a lot of leeway between their effective dose and LD50.
Water can be lethal if you consume too much of it in a short time as one unlucky "Hold your wee for a wii" contestant found out the hard way.
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/jury-rules-radio-station-jennifer-strange-water-drinking/story?id=8970712
Electrolyte imbalance is also the root cause of many MDMA deaths.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0736467909003291
--
Martin Brown