If you ’ve read Lewis Carroll ’s " Alice ’s Adventures in Wonderland " or see any of the movie adaptations , the Mad Hatter is obligate to have left an opinion . He ’s freakish , to say the least , as he presides over a frisk Camellia sinensis party that Alice advert .
But the estimate of being " frantic as a hatter " ( in the British sense , " mad " meaning " crazy " ) did n’t come from Carroll . And if you , like Alice , have a tendency to fall down rabbit holes , this phrasal idiom is a existent delicacy .
“We’re All Mad Here”
Carroll ’s book was publish in 1865 , but theOxford English Dictionaryputs the earliest get laid use of " mad as a hatter " in 1829 . That ’s three and a half decades before anyMarch haresor dormouse sipped tea , or the Cheshire cat made his renowned call of oecumenical madness . The existent origin of the phrasal idiom is unnamed , but it ’s believed to be link to mercury toxic condition in hatter .
Several years after the Alice first seem , in 1883 , the phrase " hatter ’s handshake " was used to key out the consideration triggered by mercury poisoning . The symptom included muscle tremors , plus mental and behavioural changes . The Hatter behaves strangely in the novel ( as do many other characters ) , but his acquaintance accept his oddities as being the usual .
Today , mercury poisoning is know to the aesculapian and scientific community of interests aserethism . The modern list of symptoms admit pettishness and cacoethes , both of which the Hatter has . But there ’s also sleep disturbance , economic crisis , visual disturbance , hear loss and those revealing tremors , which the Hatter does n’t seem to have .
You ’ll be glad to learn that unforesightful - term exposure to Hg can make erethism , but it usually goes away if you may continue away from touch or inhaling mercury . Long - term picture , such as dental professionals and chemical workers experience , can mean the symptoms persist . In any case , erethism is a rare disease .
“Then You Should Say What You Mean”
At his test , the Hatter explains to the King that he has no hats of his own because he sells all the hats he has . Which brings us to the last full stop in our rabbit hollow : What does hydrargyrum have to do with hat ?
It ’s part of a process promise " carroting . " In parliamentary law to make palpate , which is what many hats are made of , you have to get the pelt of a beaver or rabbit to hold fast together in a mat of thick , stiff textile . To get the fur off the skin cleanly , mercuric nitrate was used . It came to be known as carroting because the solution would turn the edge of the peltsorangeas it dried .
Modern haberdashers usehydrogen peroxideto absent the pelt from the skin , which is a slower but much safer process .
