just to add- miners would put the mercury in their gold pans to engulf the small flake gold that they couldn’t get easily just by panning and picking the plinkers out- the fines were tougher to separate from the sand- so they woudl use the mercury as the two metals are attracted to each other- then they’d burn off the mercury, and just the gold would be left
Not sure you can get mercury poisoning just from handling it- but not entirely sure- i think it has to be inhaled
I remember reading about miners doing that. Once they had the mercury as loaded with gold as it would absorb, they would slice a potato, hollow out a hole in the center, place the mercury piece in it, place the two sides together, and bury it in HOT ashes till the mercury cooked off.
Then they would dig out the potato, cut out the remaining chunk of gold, then EAT THE POTATO.