A broken mercury-containing thermometer can be toxic if the vapors are inhaled. The risk of poisoning from touching or swallowing mercury from a broken thermometer is low if appropriate clean-up measures are taken. A fever can be a sign of an infection or other medical conditions, so it is useful to be able to check body temperature with a thermometer. Temperatures can be checked in the mouth, rectum, armpit, ear, and across the forehead.
While rectal temperature is the most accurate it is often impractical to measure temperature this way. There are many types of thermometers. The oldest thermometers used are mercury in glass. Newer thermometers include non-mercury liquids in glass and digital and electronic devices that use sensors to measure temperature. Thermometers that check body temperature in the ear, across the forehead, or have a digital display do not contain mercury. The Environmental Protection Agency EPA recommends using mercury-free thermometers but it does not recommend any specific brand.
You should pick a thermometer that is easy to use and read. Potentially harmful effects from broken thermometers vary depending on the type of thermometer. The most concerning are mercury-containing thermometers. However, many of the electronic thermometers contain button cell batteries which can be very harmful if swallowed. If a battery is swallowed, contact the battery ingestion hotline at Exposure to broken glass thermometers can lead to injury from the broken glass.
Studies of children in emergency rooms have noted injury to the mouth, rectum, and ear from broken thermometer glass. There can be other dangers related to glass thermometers depending on the type of liquid inside them.
If you have a liquid-in-glass thermometer, it is important to be able to tell if it contains mercury. A few simple steps can help. If the liquid is not silver in color, it does not contain mercury.
The non-silver liquid-in-glass thermometers typically contain a colored alcohol. Contact with the skin or inside the mouth could cause minor irritation or a burning sensation that should go away quickly.
If the liquid spills, rinse off exposed areas with water. If the liquid gets in the eye, flush the eye with water for 15 to 20 minutes, then call Poison Control. Cleaning up a mercury spill requires patience and attention to detail to recover the mercury and to limit your exposure to toxic mercury vapors.
At this point, you should have read the previous sections in this fact sheet that describe a small mercury spill, what you should do immediately after a mercury spill and what you need to know if you decide to do the spill cleanup yourself. The following section is a general step—by—step guide on how to clean up a small mercury spill.
You should complete each of the following steps to recover the spilled mercury and remove the contamination. Any mercury not removed will continue to be a source of potentially harmful mercury vapors. Navigation menu. Mercury is a shiny, silvery liquid metal that can cause serious health problems Liquid mercury vaporizes evaporates at room temperature causing elevated levels of mercury in indoor air. Know where mercury may be found in your home Mercury may be found in thermometers, thermostats, blood pressure units, barometers and gas pressure regulators.
Mercury health effects Breathing small amounts of mercury vapor can harm the nervous system of unborn babies, nursing infants and children. Revised: April And I remember using DDT as an insecticide. Still alive and kicking.
Several times during my childhood a mercury thermometer would break and my mother let me push the minute beads of mercury together from all over the bathroom floor and watch them eat each other and grow. It was fascinating. So now I'm brain-damaged? We used to take the mercury out of thermometers and put it into a glass bottle. We would turn the bottle and watch it move around and thought it was cool. We were around in a group of kids that just hung out together. Back in the early 70s nobody cared what we were doing as long as we weren't fighting or in the grownups hair.
When I got into high school I found out how dangerous it is. We knew it was poison but to us that meant we shouldn't eat it. As a child, of course! My mother even let us touch it, thinking it was a good science learning. And once in a class at school. But then, I'm old and nobody knew better then.
My kids got the "don't touch it" lecture. Hi, I've always been warned since childhood not to touch mercury, so never have. Over a decade ago science professor at US Davis passed a way from over exposure to Mercury in the lab. Also a very dear Doctor of chiropractic passed away in from having eaten sea food tainted with Mercury.
It was very sad to see a once robust individual who had helped to restore my own health, waste with away with declining health over a period of 18 months. Still saddens me to think of him.
I'm sorry, but I don't see why anyone would ever touch the stuff! People have known it is toxic for a long time. Seems like anyone alive who touched it must be terminally stupid.
That's my opinion, anyway! I had a gold ring on one time and accidentally touched the mercury drop with the ring. The gold and mercury reacted, permanently discoloring the ring.
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Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.
Chemistry Expert. Helmenstine holds a Ph. She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph. They start to skid off at the end of the line and can't write straight," Gebel says. Even a simple thing such as a broken thermometer can lead to mercury poisoning.
It can be particularly dangerous in a children's playroom if liquid mercury seeps into cracks and corners and is left undisturbed to vaporize. But mercury vaporizes more slowly, it can take days or weeks, and could be inhaled over a longer period of time," says Gebel. Jochen Flasbarth, president of Germany's Federal Environment Agency, says children in some developing countries often expose themselves to the risks by disassembling florescent lamps and energy saving lamps to get at the metal inside.
In addition to liquid mercury, mercury salts and compounds are also dangerous, especially when they get into water systems through industrial waste. Mercury poisoning via heavily contaminated seafood and fish can harm a person's fertility as well as threaten their nervous system. But while mercury is generally considered highly poisonous, doctors in the late 19th century gave patients significant amounts of the element to treat intestinal obstructions.
The effect is completely different when mercury is inhaled. As a vapor, the mercury is inhaled as individual atoms and quickly absorbed by the lungs where its poisonous effects begin to develop.
If, however, you drink mercury, hardly any of it stays in the system - most of it exits the body once it has performed its function. But you really shouldn't try drinking mercury - most of the patients in the 19th century didn't survive. It's all too easy to inhale mercury unintentionally along the way. Humans have been using mercury since ancient times. In the Middle Ages, it was used in alchemy and medicine.
It was only in the modern period that it became clear that the metal is highly poisonous.
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