Mercuric chloride poisoning: symptoms, analysis, therapies, and autoptic findings. A review of the literature

Abstract

Among mercury-related intoxications, the re-emerging of mercuric chloride poisoning has been recently described in literature. Only sparse data, reporting the clinical symptoms, the anatomo-pathological findings, the analytical procedures or the treatment have been published and no exhaustive analysis of all these factors exists in literature. The classic symptoms associated with toxicity of mercuric chloride is a combination of renal, gastrointestinal (GI) and central nervous system (CNS) damages, eventually leading to death. Fatalities related to exposure to mercuric chloride have been reported since the nineteenth century. To date, there have been 45 published cases in the medical literature in which the intoxication or the death is attributed to mercuric chloride. In this review, we will describe the modern medical treatments, with particular attenztion to the developments of the lasts two decades, in order to provide an exhaustive description of the clinical symptoms, the post-mortem findings, and the analytical procedures to act out when mercuric chloride intoxication occurs. The analysis of the data obtained permitted us to accurately describe all the organs and apparatus involved in mercuric chloride intoxication. The target organs were the kidneys, the GI tract and the CNS. A description of the analytical procedures for the determination of mercuric chloride in biological materials, to carry out in vivo and in post-mortem samples has also been described.

Keywords:

• Mercury chloride
• mercury poisoning
• forensic toxicology
• mercury intoxication

Acknowledgments

Technical assistance from Dr. Santina Cantatore of the University of Foggia is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Dr. Alessandro Santurro and Matteo Scopetti of the Sapienza University of Roma for taking the time for providing supplementary data from recent studies. These comments were very useful in revising this article.

Declaration of interest

In accordance with Taylor and Francis policy and ethical obligations, the authors declare to have no conflict of interest. No funding was received for this project. The regular employment affiliation of the authors is shown on the cover page. This critical review was conducted during the normal course of the authors’employment using institutional funding. No outside funds were used to prepare the review. The preparation of the review, conclusions drawn, and the recommendations made are the exclusive professional work product of the authors and may not necessarily be those of the employers. None of the authors has participated in regulatory or legal proceeding during the past five years related to the contents of this article.