1980 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel
Mercury
verfasst von : G. Kaiser, G. Tölg
Erschienen in: Anthropogenic Compounds
Verlag: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Enthalten in: Professional Book Archive
Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.
Wählen Sie Textabschnitte aus um mit Künstlicher Intelligenz passenden Patente zu finden. powered by
Markieren Sie Textabschnitte, um KI-gestützt weitere passende Inhalte zu finden. powered by
The story of mercury can be traced back to prehistoric times. A precise dating is, however, impossible because reliable written records are lacking [1]. The first evidences of the use of mercury originate from the ancient Chinese, who used the metal and its principal ore cinnabar as a medicine to prolong life [2] and cinnabar for the preparation of red ink [3]. Often the Hindus [4], the Egyptians [5, 6], the Hettities [7], and the Assyrians [8] were credited with the use of mercury. Positive proofs for this assumption are, however, still lacking [9, 10]. The metal is said to have been known very early in Persia [9, 11] but a chronological assignment is impossible [12]. The Phoenicians exploited cinnabar in Spain from the 8th century B.C. but there is no direct evidence of their involvement with the metal [14]. In the 5th century B.C. cinnabar was used as a pigment by the Greeks [13, 15] but Aristotle is reputed to be the first in Europe who mentioned the metal itself [16].