Here's what to do if you break one Health authorities are working toward the day when mercury thermometers become extinct. The liquid metal easily evaporates into a toxic vapor. Because it interferes with growth and development, children may be affected by small amounts of mercury. A broken mercury thermometer has enough of the metal to poison children if it's allowed to vaporize in a poorly ventilated room. Experts say that mercury thermometers are obsolete anyway.
Electronic thermometers are easier to read and they take a temperature faster and more accurately.
They're also easily affordable now. Curiously, people who break mercury thermometers in their mouths are less at risk than when the metal spills on the floor and is left to evaporate. The liquid form of the metal usually passes through the body without being absorbed. Symptoms of mercury poisoning can include vision or hearing problems, tremors, insomnia, weakness, poor memory, headache, irritability, nervousness, shyness, rashes, itching, joint pain and excessive sweating. The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry describes mercury toxicity in detail.