Danbury Tremor

Question and Answer on Danbury Tremor

Question 1- What is Danbury tremor?
Answer- Danbury tremor or Danbury shakes is seen in the case of Mercury Poisoning.

Question 2- What is Mercury?
Answer- Mercury is a heavy metal with known toxicity. Mercury is sometimes called quicksilver. It is a heavy, silvery-white liquid metal.

Mercury is the only elemental metal that is liquid at room temperature.

Question 3- What is “Danbury” in Danbury tremor?
Answer- Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately 50 miles northeast of New York City, making it part of the New York metropolitan area.

Question 4- What is the reason behind adding the name of city of Danbury in “Danbury tremor”?
Answer- Danbury is a city which was earlier popular for hat production. And due to tremendous production of hats, this city was started to name as “Hat City”. Although Danbury’s hat-making industry dated back to 1780, advances in the mechanization of manufacturing processes contributed to its rapid growth in the mid-19th century as did consumer demand for felted fur hats. During the lots of production of hats,(mercury was involved in processing) worker suffered from the tremor which was named as “hatter’s shakes”. which was known as Danbury Tremor afterwards. 

Question 5- Danbury tremor is seen in which type of poisoning?
Answer- Mercury poisoning.

Question 6- What are the other names of Danbury tremors?
Answer-
 Hatter’s shakes,
 Glass blower’s shakes,
 Intention tremors or
 Shaking palsy.

Question 7- What are other compounds or chemicals that can cause tremors?
Answer- Following Compounds can cause Tremors:

Question 8- Danbury tremor is first seen in which body part?
Answer- Danbury shakes were first starting with hands then progresses to lips, tongue, arms, and legs.

Question 9- What is the most severe form of tremor in Mercury Poisoning?
Answer- Concussion Mercurilis.

Question 10- What are the other specific diseases related to mercury positioning?
Answer-
 Mercurialentis: Brown reflex of the anterior lens capsule of the eye which can be seen by Slit-lamp examination.
 Acrodynia or Pink disease: are mostly in children having pinkish acral rashes
 Minamata disease: caused by Organic Contamination like eating fish. It causes disturbances in hand coordination, gait, speech, etc.

 Question 11- What is the common drug treatment for mercury poisoning?
Answer- Treatment of mercury intoxication is with penicillamine or succimer.

N-acetyl penicillamine is the chelator agent along with DMPS may improve the neurological conditions.