To Vitus: Indeed,
you don't have to eat it, inhaling Hg vapors over extended time periods is very unhealthy as well! And disposing properly of something covering your laboratory ceiling? Have fun with that - without me...
To Capn_America: well, where I live, we usually make jokes about "the russian method" and so on whenever something involves old-fashioned BIG-scale equipment, huge amounts of tech-grade solvents, heating pressurized pipe bombs, reacting huge amounts of toxic/hazardous compounds without proper safety precautions etc. - so to say whenever something DANGEROUS is attempted at big scale, but without good equipment/good resources (which surely is related to the bad, bad infrastructure in russia, forcing the poor, but indeed often ingenious chemists to use outdated, tedious procedures rather than the state-of-the-art high-tech thingys they surely would like to do instead).
But since I don't live in russia: no mercury for me please - at least not in this thread *lol*...
To Hypo: Wait, lemme guess: H
2S is another favorite chemical for you, as it stinks, is a gas, forms funny coloured sulfides... - I'm lucky I don't have to work in your lab!
(two reasons against using Hg: 1. It's toxic 2. Other non-toxic chemicals do the same job better - now you again!)
C'mon guys, I don't question your credibility or anything else by not mentioning your preferred reducing agent - it is just that I personally dislike Hg and therefore I decided time ago to start a thread dealing with other, not-so-dangerous reagents suitable for arriving at subst. amphs - so why this "Mercury over all"-movement?
Greetz A