Mercury compounds and mercury vapor can be, though. So, my closed vial of mercury and my experimentation with the metal as a kid wasn't really much of a risk to me or to others. In fact, I had lots of far more risky stuff around at the time. I even had a wax container of hydrofluoric acid carefully stored with my other chemicals. I used that to mess around with glass etching. Very carefully and with the knowledge that it was quite dangerous.
All of those things are very useful, despite their relative hazardous nature. I was a preteen boy with a fascination with all of the sciences. My parents trusted me to handle the stuff I had safely. And, well, I did handle them safely.
Now, influenza in the early 20th century was something else again. It wasn't something a guy could control, so an epidemic of it was not really the same thing as a kid with a small vial of metallic mercury, was it? Fortunately, the flu vaccine is doing a pretty good job, for those who get vaccinated. We learned how to fight influenza. Some of the people who worked that vaccine out may well have been kids like me, messing around with chemistry at home as kids.
We also treat mercury differently than we did in the 1950s, when I was experimenting with my vial of the metal. I don't have any metallic mercury in my house any longer. I do, however, have several amalgam fillings in my mouth and a shit load of CFLs, each of which contains some mercury. The thermostat on my wall in the hall has a mercury switch inside of it that turns my furnace on and off. Mercury switches are very useful devices, and I don't think the one in my thermostat is much of a risk. I think there's an old mercury fever thermometer somewhere in my medicine cabinet, too, despite the fact that I have digital ones that work better now. Mercury has many uses. It's a metal with lots of potential.
Comparing a vial of metallic mercury to the 1918 flu epidemic, though...what a concept!
= new reply since forum marked as read