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2 drops of chemicals splashed on the glove, and an experienced female scientist was poisoned to death?
Many people may not believe it, but it is happening.
What's even more terrifying is that 15 seconds after the chemical splashed on the glove, the female scientist was already declared dead, and after 15 seconds, she was no longer hopeless, even if modern medicine is so developed today, the same is true......
Karen Wittharn
So, what is it that makes it so toxic, and what is the context of the whole thing?
Japan Minamata Disease Incident
This matter has to start with the Minamata disease incident that occurred in Japan in the 50s of the last century.
In the eastern part of Minamata Bay, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, there is a small town called Minamata Town, which has about 40,000 residents.
Due to the town's proximity to the seafood-rich inland sea, the sea has become their main source of food, and most of its residents live by fishing.
In 1956, a strange "epidemic" suddenly appeared near Minamata Bay, and most of the first victims were cats, who became unsteady and swayed as if they were dancing unconsciously, so the disease was also called "cat chorea" by the locals.
At the end of the disease, the cat will die because of the involuntary convulsions of the body, or the body is paralyzed and stiff.
Soon after, in Minamata Town, near Minamata Bay, someone suddenly became ill with the disease.
After a person is sick, similar to a cat, his limbs are uncoordinated, his mouth is drooling, and finally his limbs will unconsciously convuls, paralyzed, and very painful.
Locals once thought that the disease was transmitted from cats, so they hunted local cats to prevent the spread of the disease.
Although there are no cats in the area, the locals are still infected with strange diseases.
After learning about the situation, Japanese experts came to Minamata Town to investigate, and found problems in the local seawater.
The local seawater contains a large number of heavy metal elements such as mercury, the root cause of the local residents' illness is mercury poisoning, living in such seawater, the marine organisms will be enriched with a large amount of mercury elements, after people eat such marine organisms, mercury elements will be enriched into the human body, over time, the mercury content in the human body is increasing, and the symptoms of mercury poisoning will be shown.
The culprit of all this is a local chemical plant, which produces chemical products and discharges the wastewater directly into the "ignorant fire" without any treatment, which has led to the serious pollution of the entire sea area by heavy metal elements.
Because the strange disease occurred in Minamata Town, it was later widely known as Minamata disease.
The impact of this Minamata disease incident was so great that it became one of the eight major public hazards in the world.
As a result, the world has become more aware of the dangers of mercury and is therefore cautious in any experiments that require mercury.
Death of a female scientist
The female scientist who was killed by two drops of chemicals was also aware of the dangers of mercury, so she was very cautious when conducting experiments.
The female scientist's name was Karen Wittharn, and she was one of the world's leading experts in metal toxicity research at the time.
Karen Wittharn
On August 14, 1996, she conducted an experiment that required calibration of an MRI machine with dimethylmercury, the most dangerous organic mercury compound known to date, requiring only a few microliters to kill a person.
Therefore, even though Karen is very experienced, when using dimethylmercury, her heart is also hanging, for fear that something unexpected will happen.
But sometimes, the more careful you are, the easier it is to make mistakes.
During the operation, Karen really suffered an accident, and 2 drops of dimethylmercury accidentally dripped on her hand.
Although she strictly followed the experimental protocol and wore standard latex gloves for protection during the experiment, she was still not at ease, so she hurriedly took off her gloves and washed her hands with plenty of water.
From the time 2 drops of dimethylmercury onto the glove to the time Karen took off the glove, the whole process took only 15 seconds.
But in just 15 seconds, Karen's death was announced......
At first, Karen didn't feel unwell.
But after 5 months, Karen began to experience symptoms such as tears and stomach pain, followed by symptoms similar to Minamata disease, and her body began to become uncoordinated, and it was very difficult to walk.
As a last resort, Karen had to be hospitalized for examination and treatment.
Doctors tested Karen's blood sample and found that she had high levels of mercury in her blood, which is typical of mercury poisoning.
The culprit of her mercury poisoning was the 2 drops of dimethylmercury that fell onto the latex gloves.
Dimethylmercury
In response to such a situation, although the doctor tried his best to treat him, he could only prolong her life and let her survive, but could not cure her.
Eventually, on June 8, 1997, Karen died in agony in her hospital bed.
At this time, 298 days had passed since she was exposed to dimethylmercury......
How did 2 drops of dimethylmercury kill a female scientist through a glove?
During the whole experiment, Karen strictly followed the experimental protocol, and she also wore latex gloves, and immediately after the dimethylmercury drop, she took off the gloves to wash her hands.
It's hard to imagine which wrong step led to her poisoning.
Speaking of which, the crux of the problem actually lies in the latex gloves that Karen wears.
Latex gloves seem to isolate the 2 drops of dimethylmercury very well, but the reality is that dimethylmercury, as an organic compound, can dissolve into latex gloves to penetrate them.
Depending on the material and thickness of the gloves Karen was wearing, it would take about 15 seconds for two drops of dimethylmercury to penetrate them.
At that time, it took 15 seconds from the time methylenemercury dripped onto Karen's gloves and the time she took them off.
As a result, dimethylmercury had access to the skin of her hands, which eventually led to her poisoning......
Write at the end
Although it is difficult for us to come into contact with dimethylmercury, a highly toxic mercury compound, we do have direct exposure to elemental mercury.
Like our commonly used mercury thermometers, mercury sphygmomanometers, etc., all contain a lot of mercury.
Once these things are accidentally broken, the mercury in them will leak, causing serious harm to the surrounding environment and our human health......
Therefore, it is also very necessary for us to be vigilant in life.