# @wild_history_uk on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DVywG60CJYP
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/59840908-wild-history-uk-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/6a4a8ff012.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-12T17:43:10.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Wild History Shocking Stories From the Past (@wild_history_uk) — https://gondola.cc/wild_history_uk

## Caption

London, 1860. This is Sarah. She’s twenty-one years old. And she can’t stop shaking.
Sarah is a fur puller. She works in a hat factory, preparing fur for felt hats—top hats for wealthy gentlemen.
The process is called “carroting”:
	∙	Take rabbit pelts
	∙	Brush them with mercury nitrate solution
	∙	The mercury makes the fur separate from skin easily
	∙	It also turns the fur orange—like carrots
	∙	That’s where the name comes from
Sarah’s job is pulling the treated fur from the pelts.
Her hands are in mercury solution for ten hours a day. She breathes the mercury vapor constantly. The room has no ventilation.
Mercury is poison. It attacks the nervous system.
After six months: Sarah noticed her hands shaking. Just a slight tremor. Then it got worse.
After a year: The personality changes started. She’d fly into rages over nothing. Cry uncontrollably. Her coworkers started avoiding her.
“Mad as a hatter”—that’s what they called workers like Sarah.
After eighteen months: Her teeth started falling out. Her gums turned black and bled constantly.
She drools now—can’t control it. The excessive salivation is constant, humiliating.
Her hands shake so violently she can barely eat. She has hallucinations—seeing things that aren’t there. Her speech is slurred. She can’t remember simple things.
The factory fired her last week. “Too unstable to work safely.”
She’s twenty-one. Her mind is gone. Her body is failing. There’s no cure. The mercury damage is permanent.
She made top hats for wealthy gentlemen who wanted to look distinguished. Now she’s drooling, shaking, and going mad.
London, 1860. When poor women went insane making luxury for the rich.
This is Part 16 of “Cities That Built the World”—the deadly hat industry. #MadAsAHatter #MercuryPoisoning #VictorianLondon #HistoryTok #HatHistory

## Stats

- **Views:** 8,069
- **Likes:** 835
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- **Comments:** 13

## Tags

victorianlondon, mercurypoisoning, madasahatter, hathistory, historytok

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