Mercury

Symptoms of mercury include loss of speech comprehension and articulation problems, abdominal pain; gastroenteritis; nausea; excessive salivation; poor coordination; loss of appetite and weight loss; anuria and kidney disease; blurred vision; abnormal posture; loss of balance; problems sitting, lying, crawling, and walking; burning sensation in the throat and stomach; and bloody diarrhea.

Symptoms of arsenic include loss of appetite, nausea, and diarrhea. More serious effects of higher levels of exposure to arsenic include pins and needles tingling in the palms, the appearance of small corns or warts on the palms, soles of the feet, and torso or cramps in calf muscles; heat and irritation in throat and stomach; a garlic odor on breath; vomiting; loose stools; neurological effects including restlessness, chronic headaches, apathy, fainting, dizziness, delirium, somnolence, convulsions or coma; (ADHD), lacks eye contact and impaired visual fixation (“Mercury and arsenic”). Other differences in symptoms is that mercury displays considerable affinity for the brain, it causes blindness, and reduced mental capacity such as speech and language deficits; causesvdamage to the central nervous system, while arsenic exposure is associated with various gastrointestinal tract cancers; peripheral vascular disturbances resulting in gangrene and a disease named “Blackfoot disease”; renal toxicity; anemia; hypertension; diabetes; pulmonary fibrosis respiratory tract cancers; kidney damage and blood vessel damage (Timbrell, 2002).

Works Cited

Mercury and arsenic. American Association for Clinical Chemistry. Retrieved from http://www.aacc.org/members/divisions/tdm/library/Pages/November2009.aspx#

Timbrell, J. (2002). Introduction to toxicology (3rd ed.). New York: Informa Health Care USA, inc.