The first indication of the extreme toxicity of dimethylmercury
(DMM) was documented in 1863 when two laboratory assistants
died of DMM poisoning while synthesizing DMM in the
laboratory of Frankland and Duppa. There are numerous reports
of people dying from alkyl mercury compounds including
a chemist who was preparing several thousand grams ofDMMin
his laboratory in 1974. The extreme toxicity was revisited in
1997, when Karen Wetterhahn, an internationally renowned
researcher of the carcinogenic effects of heavy metals on DNA
repair proteins, died within a few months after a single exposure
of less than a milliliter of DMM on her latex-covered hand.
DMM is extremely toxic and lethal at a dose of approximately
400 mg of mercury (equivalent to a few drops) or about
5mgkg-1 of body weight or as little as 0.1 ml
