@riverlover

          Workers at Handford Atomic Works would sometimes max out their dosemeters early in an annual cycle. Some would seek temporary employment in nearby school districts and colleges.

          I didn't know his background so I don't know if he was one of "them" but the teacher in my freshman chemistry class was overqualified. One day he got frustrated with the pedantic textbook and started describing reaction rates in terms of differential equations of various orders. It was an awesome class. Suddenly chemistry made sense, well to some of us anyway.

worked at DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware and later developed bladder cancer, perhaps linked to dye synthesis there. Lost his bladder later. Died of heart failure, a bad way to go.

What will happen to me, who used to wash glassware in benzene sans-gloves?

@Alligator Ed

          When I came to Kearney State College I met my new colleagues for the first time. One of them, I will call him John ... because that was his name, exhibited all the signs of mercury poisoning.

          Full disclosure: I did not know him before 1979 so I have no baseline from which to judge any changes in his cognitive functions over time. So I have no proof of deterioration, but, extrapolating from his academic credentials, he was clearly impaired. Sadly, I observed his deterioration over several years, helpless because everyone knew I was expressing concerns "outside my area of expertise". The worst part: We never became friends. Perhaps that was for the best ... clinical detachment is preferred in some cases, I am told.

          One of his favorite classroom demonstrations was to construct a mercury barometer. At least once a year he would use a glass baking dish, a long glass tube, a rubber cork, and a large volume of mercury to create a barometer for his classes, visiting school groups, et cetera. He was a charming character that liked to play with the beads of mercury and encourage all and sundry to participate.

          I would often suggest that this all was a very bad idea. John would get extremely angry, describe me as the south end of a horse going north, and point out that the vapor pressure of mercury is so very low that there was absolutely no reason to be concerned. So you see, the new guy is just being a wimp, he is, after all, a particle physicist. And besides that, he is one of those pansy environmentalists, sheesh!, next thing you know he will be calling the EPA or something, something, something.

          I remember my wife being appalled by the amount of mercury I found, and removed from the various crevices and odd depressions in the several labs in the department. And the problem was not confined to the Department of Physics and John. One fine spring day during those first few years I answered a newspaper advertisement. Across town a woman had a pound of mercury in a jar she wanted to sell. I called and calmly inquired, heard children's voices in the background, and calmly hung up the phone. I then burned rubber getting to her house. She assured me that she had no more mercury, and no the children had not been playing with it (she lied, I am sure), as I calmly removed it from the house containing at least three toddlers.

          Amazingly, John lived to the age of 79. His last years were not so good however. Mercury is an insidious killer, but what the hell do I know.

John Bernard Rohrs
April 3, 1931 - August 13, 2009
Kearney, Nebraska

And to a lesser degree cadmium, arsenic, AND mercury? Come on, PR, give them other elements their share of fame.