another tragic dimethylmercury

Mercury sparked another tragic event in Hanover, New Hampshire. The story of Dartmouth College chemistry professor Karen E. Wetterhahn made national headlines when she died at the age of 48 from exposure to dimethylmercury (DMM). In August 1996, Wetterhahn, a toxic metals expert, was accepting a $7 million federal grant. Research toxic metals. She was poisoned in the lab by a drop of the experimental mercury compound DMM, which accidentally seeped into her latex gloves and soaked into her skin. Symptoms gradually started like stomach flu, but then she started banging on doors and falling suddenly. dimethylmercury  became difficult, her hands tingled, and she was rushed to the emergency room 5 months after the spill. Symptoms then developed rapidly: By the weekend, she was unable to walk, her speech was slurred and her hands were shaking. Mercury poisoning was diagnosed and treatment began, but little was known about the rare man-made chemical DMM, a colorless liquid that looked like water but was three times heavier than other forms of mercury and far more toxic. Dr. Wetterhahn fell ill and was hospitalized in January 1997. She soon fell into a coma and died in June of that year. As a result of her tragedy, safety standards for gloves and other protective equipment were revised, and a movement began to eliminate the production and use of this deadliest form of mercury. The first indications of the extreme toxicity of DMM were recorded in 1863, when two laboratory assistants died of DMM poisoning while synthesizing DMM in the Frankland and Duppa laboratories. Another case of DMM poisoning occurred in 1972, when a Czech chemist developed symptoms similar to Dr. Wetterhahn's and eventually died. For more information, see Dimethylmercury.
Direct observation of both isotopes of cadmium is relatively easy, with 113Cd having a minor advantage in receptivity. In recent years, direct measurements of 199Hg using multicore FT systems have produced a large amount of data, some of which are summarized in Table 18. The most relevant problem with 199Hg observations is excessive line width. The 199Hg resonance at 4.7 T has been found to be severely broadened by screening anisotropic relaxation. Many researchers use external pure dimethylmercury as a chemical shift reference or as a concentrated sample for an initial search for a 199Hg reference. In fact, dimethylmercury has several inherent properties well suited for 199Hg experiments (fast and accurate measurement, strong coupling to protons), but is highly toxic (LD50 MeHg, 0.1 ml). For this reason, mercury perchlorate is also reported in the literature as a reference. At a concentration of 0.1 mol l−1 in a solution of 0.1 mol l−1 perchloric acid, the chemical shift is -2250 ppm relative to dimethylmercury.

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