a pipe smoking dog posted:

Wait that stuff is corrugated asbestos? gently caress, now my country childhood poking round abandoned farm buildings seems a lot more concerning.

Gorilla Salad posted:

Well asbestos is a rock.

midnightclimax posted:

I just see wood, stone, metal.

midnightclimax posted:

It's the roof? I assumed asbestos looks like rock or glass wool.

Lurking Haro posted:

Had the pleasure to replace a roof made of asbestos a few years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternit

haveblue posted:

But that was before we knew about the cancer, right? Or was it like leaded gas where there was a multi-decade lobbying effort to sustain it?

Leperflesh posted:

Also, people in general used to just not give as much of a poo poo about whether or by how much products were safe.

I mean, that was a real thing. The idea that the government has a role in keeping people safe from the poo poo they buy is a modern one, and even with the advent of things like the FDA, it was just generally accepted until relatively recently that you could go to the store and buy dangerous stuff and that was OK.

Leperflesh posted:

When I was a kid I had a chemistry set. It was made and specifically marketed to kids. It contained small amounts of several substances that were significantly toxic enough to have little skull-and-crossbones icons on the labels.

Leperflesh posted:

Nah it had a lot of stuff like that, but a bit of googling suggests those old kits had stuff like ammonium nitrate, potassium permanganate, etc. It definitely had a little glass bottle with a wick to be used as an alcohol-burning bunsen burner, with a test-tube holder to position over it - which was apparently outlawed in like 1978?

Apparently kits from the 1950s even had stuff like uranium dust and cyanide.

Mine was probably bought around 1981 or 1982, but I suspect it was significantly older - my mom didn't have much money back then, and we shopped at thrift stores and stuff a lot. Or it might have come from a grandparent.

I had a soldering iron when I was 8 or 9.

Leperflesh posted:

It definitely had a little glass bottle with a wick to be used as an alcohol-burning bunsen burner, with a test-tube holder to position over it - which was apparently outlawed in like 1978?

Leperflesh posted:

Apparently kits from the 1950s even had stuff like uranium dust and cyanide.

Leperflesh posted:

Nah it had a lot of stuff like that, but a bit of googling suggests those old kits had stuff like ammonium nitrate, potassium permanganate, etc. It definitely had a little glass bottle with a wick to be used as an alcohol-burning bunsen burner, with a test-tube holder to position over it - which was apparently outlawed in like 1978?

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

My parents were born in the 50's and they talked about handling mercury with their bare hands in school and buying kits that came with vegetable seeds and radioactive pellets to plant with them.

Shoe stores still had these things in them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope when they were young kids.

Leperflesh posted:

I had a soldering iron when I was 8 or 9.

Lurking Haro posted:

That's not too bad unless you don't have a stand for it.

Gromit posted:

I had a chemistry set in the late 70s in the UK, and my mum used to buy me extra chemicals that I'd ask her for. No idea where she got them from though. From some googling, it looks like my set would have come from Salter Science, as the photo of the test tubes on the wiki page looks very familiar. I'll have to check the attic in the old family home to see if the set is still there.
I've no idea if any of the listed chemicals on that page were dangerous or not, but I wasn't stupid enough as a child to taste any of it.

e: My set was pretty much this one, but wasn't quite this layout and definitely older styled:
http://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/vintage-salter-science-chemistry-set/1104946314

`Nemesis posted:

My mom broke a thermometer intentionally so I could see and play with the mercury. I spilled it into the carpet later and didn't think of it again until many years later when I actually learned about mercury.

Angela Christine posted:

Mercury is bad, but it isn't that bad. People used to drink the stuff as a remedy for constipation. Kids used to play with it in chemistry class, and the chemistry teachers used to have several classes playing with it every year.

A single touch of the silver liquid isn't guaranteed death. A broken fluorescent bulb doesn't need a hazmat team to clean up.

`Nemesis posted:

I agree with you, it wasn't a big deal. But that also didn't stop the EHS team at a prior employer from calling in a remediation team to do a full on hazmat cleanup because a mercury wall thermostat broke and spilled mercury behind the drywall. They had to have spent 30k on remediation services for something that wasn't given second thought by me or my parents when I was a kid.

This was full on hazmat suits, isolation systems, and 3-4 days of work for a little spilled mercury.

Angela Christine posted:

Mercury is bad, but it isn't that bad. People used to drink the stuff as a remedy for constipation.

dr_rat posted:

But seriously don't drink mercury kids

Carbon dioxide posted:

Actually, inhaling its vapours (by simply having your face over a spill) is, apparently, more dangerous than drinking it. Your lungs absorb the vapour quite well. Your intestines aren't quite as good in absorbing mercury, so, I've been led to understand that the main thing it does when you drink it is act as a gravity-assisted laxative.

midnightclimax posted:

What if you put it up the butt?

On August 14, 1996, Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was studying the way mercury ions interact with DNA repair proteins, and was using dimethylmercury as a standard reference material for 199Hg NMR measurements.[4] Dimethylmercury is a synthetic compound used almost exclusively as a reference standard in a particular type of specialized chemical analysis. Wetterhahn was investigating the toxic properties of another highly toxic heavy metal, cadmium.

Wetterhahn would recall that she had spilled one or two drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of a pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Not believing herself in any immediate danger, as she was taking all recommended precautions,[5] she proceeded to clean up the area prior to removing her protective clothing.[6] However, tests later revealed that dimethylmercury can in fact rapidly permeate different kinds of latex gloves and enter the skin within about 15 seconds.[4] The exposure was later confirmed by hair testing, which showed a dramatic jump in mercury levels 17 days after the initial accident, peaking at 39 days, followed by a gradual decline.[6]

Approximately three months after the initial accident Wetterhahn began suffering brief episodes of abdominal discomfort and noted a significant weight loss. The more distinctive neurological symptoms of mercury poisoning, including loss of balance and slurred speech, appeared in January 1997.[6] At this point tests proved that she was suffering from a debilitating mercury intoxication.[2][3][5] She was admitted to the hospital, where it was discovered that the single exposure to dimethylmercury had raised her blood mercury level to 4,000 micrograms per liter, or 80 times the toxic threshold. Her urinary mercury content had risen to 234 µg per liter; its normal range is from 1 to 5 and the toxic level is > 50 μg/L.[6]

Despite aggressive chelation therapy, her condition rapidly deteriorated; three weeks after the first neurological symptoms appeared, Wetterhahn lapsed into what appeared to be a vegetative state punctuated by periods of extreme agitation. One of her former students said that "Her husband saw tears rolling down her face. I asked if she was in pain. The doctors said it didn't appear that her brain could even register pain."[5] Wetterhahn was removed from life support and died on June 8, 1997, less than a year after her initial exposure.[6]

There had been previous documented cases of death due to dimethylmercury poisoning. In 1865, two English laboratory assistants died several weeks after helping to synthesize dimethylmercury for the first time. In 1972, a 28-year-old chemist in Czechoslovakia had suffered the same symptoms as Wetterhahn after synthesizing 6 kg of the compound.[2][6]