People nowadays are much more conscious of the environmental toxins. Plus... Imagine Aquila sells lead and-or mercury loaded strings. The lawyers will swarm around lute players like sharks with offers of service.
The evidence of loaded strings is based squarely on Mimmo Peruffo's research. His conclusions were made on the basis of paintings (showing smooth surface = non wound strings with a variant of red color ) and instrument string-hole measurements. One point being argued, however, was whether some of lute strings, and possibly loaded basses, were made of silk rather then gut. That discussion was held in FoRMHI, and basically died with the demise of the Fellowship itself. From the point of leeching the metals out, silk binds more closely with lead and mercury salts (as well as tin salts, customarily used to apply all the fancy colors to silk garbs), and might be much safer as loaded strings, as well. alexander On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:41:33 +0000 "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote: > I wouldn't claim to be an expert, but according to my medical dictionary > mercury poisoning was common in some trades in the past - in particular in > the preparation of felt used in hats. That is where the expression "mad as > a hatter" comes from. > > This may be a silly question because I have been following this thread very > closely but is there any evidence that strings were loaded with mercury or > anything else apart from the fact that some works of art show the lower > courses differently coloured? > > Monica > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Martyn Hodgson" <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk> > To: "David van Ooijen" <davidvanooi...@gmail.com>; "Mathias Rösel" > <mathias.roe...@t-online.de> > Cc: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> > Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:08 PM > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Laurent de La Hyre > > > > > > Regarding the use of mercury (or lead) to load a gut string: if it were > > a problem wouldn't we have seen at least some contemporary reports of > > professional lutenists with poisining symptoms - I'm not aware of any. > > But perhaps the amount of mercuric compound is so relatively small > > (unlike with the hatters who rubbed raw mercury into hats with their > > fingers) that there's no noticeable effect. Surely a toxologist should > > be able to inform us.... > > > > MH > > --- On Mon, 23/2/09, "Mathias Roesel" <mathias.roe...@t-online.de> > > wrote: > > > > From: "Mathias Roesel" <mathias.roe...@t-online.de> > > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Laurent de La Hyre > > To: "David van Ooijen" <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> > > Cc: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > > Date: Monday, 23 February, 2009, 2:23 PM > > "David van Ooijen" <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> schrieb: > >> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 9:26 AM, "Mathias Roesel" > >> <mathias.roe...@t-online.de> wrote: > >> >> rarely touch it). With later providing you play a lot, the skin > > contact is > >> >> enormous. > >> > > >> > You might consider playing with nails, then. > >> > >> On both hands? > >> > >> David > > > > No, RH, of course. It will reduce poisoning by 50%! > > > > But seriously I wonder if densifying a gut string with mercury, which is > > easily composed with organic materials, means that afterwards the string > > still is poisonous. And, no, I'm not willing to try it. > > -- > > Mathias > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > -- > > > >
