ABSTRACT
Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice in Wonderland is a widely adored story, inspiring numerous films and artworks through its fantastical settings. Fans of the franchise adore the unique characters that Carroll put forth, including the beloved Mad Hatter. However, the origin of the phrase ‘Mad as a Hatter’, while it now commonly evokes the image of Carroll’s Hatter, is actually much older than the stories known today. In the days before our awareness of its toxicity, mercury was used in many different processes, including industry and medicine, as well as hat-making. To prepare animal hides for felt to be used in hats, mercury nitrate was applied to cure the pelt. Unfortunately for those applying the compound, mercury is a potent neurotoxin. As early as the seventeenth century, documented reports cite clothing makers being described as insane or mad, often displaying uncontrolled tremors and shaking, distorted vision, speech disruptions, and psychosis. The practice was not outlawed in the US until 1941, after the fashion capital of Danbury Connecticut gave an additional nickname to the condition: the Danbury Shakes. The exact method in which mercury damages the brain is not yet understood, though findings have suggested that it interferes with the thioredoxin system, which is vital to cellular function throughout the body, as well as that it is capable of traversing the blood-brain barrier, thereby acting directly on central nervous system tissue. As we continue our studies as to how mercury affects the brain, we need to also explore its metabolism to prevent such effects from naturally occurring forms of mercury, such as the methylmercury commonly found in edible fish.
