Details - Public Health Image Library(PHIL)

ID#:

9538

Caption:

This October 1951 photograph was provided by the Center for Disease Control's (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The image depicted a Calkins Slurry Treater - Model 5-30, which was used to treat stored seed grain with methylmercury on an Oklahoma farm. During the 1950s and 1960s, mercury was used in agricultural settings as a fungicidal seed treatment in the form of methylmercury, and had been known to enter the human food chain when farm raised birds, including turkeys and pheasants consume mercury treated grains. The customary use of mercuric fungicides, has for the most part, been discontinued in the developed world, but may still be implemented in the underdeveloped world. This compound need not be ingested in order to impart its neurotoxic effects to humans, but may also be readily absorbed through the skin as well, with the nervous system being the site of its selective concentration.