yes thats right, but ... only word I could think of for mercury...
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Mercury
Mercury is a metal that has been of great alchemical importance in ancient times. In ancient China there is evidence that mercury was used by the latter half of the first millennium BC mercury while mercury metal is reported from Hellenistic Greece. Mercury is a volatile metal which is easily produced by heating cinnabar followed by downward distillation of the mercury vapour. Some of the earliest literary references to the use of mercury distillation comes from Indian treatises such as the Arthashastra of Kautilya dating from the late first millennium BC onwards. Some evidence for mercury distillation is reported from the ancient Roman world.
In India, vermilion or cinnabar i.e. mercuric sulphide has had great ritual significance, typically having been used to make the red bindi or dot on the forehead usually associated with Hinduism. Ingeniously in ancient Chinese tombs cinnabar was used successfully as a preservative to keep fine silks intact. Mercury was also at the heart many alchemical transmutation experiments in the Middle Ages in Europe as well as in Indian alchemical texts which were precursors to the development of chemistry.
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edit:: Meaning yes that would be what I mean down below Meaning...
Completely mad. This is now commonly understood to mean crazy, although the original meaning is unclear and may have meant annoyed.
Origin
Mercury used to be used in the making of hats. This was known to have affected the nervous systems of hatters, causing them to tremble and appear insane. This could be the source of the phrase - although absolute proof is lacking
Last edited by logitechdog on 17 Jan 2007, 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.