I wondered what the Mercury actually did with the felt, as I couldn’t think of anything from the top of my hat:
Mercury made the felting process in hat production more efficient. The compound used to moisten the fibers was Mercury Nitrate, a process known as carroting. It produced a superior-quality felt, which in turn, resulted in higher-quality hats
Nine out of ten hatters recommend that you don’t do this. The tenth hatter purple monkey dishwasher.
(Victorian-era hat makers were notorious for going mad because they used mercury to treat felt cloth.)
It’s so much harder believing in six impossible things before breakfast when you’re allergic to quicksilver.
I thought it was the vapours from using mercury inside that got them.
I wondered what the Mercury actually did with the felt, as I couldn’t think of anything from the top of my hat:
Is this the origin story of The Mad Hatter? 🙄
Could have been. I know Lewis Carroll liked to lampoon issues of the day in his writing.
I think the original idiom was “mad as a hatter” which was eventually shortened to “mad hatter”, possibly due to the Alice in Wonderland character.