The mercury that drove the Hatter mad was actually seen as a mysterious and inauspicious substance by medieval alchemists in the West and people would often use it to commit suicide. People thus came to suspiciously revile it, and Napoleon on his island exile of Elba is probably its most well-known victim.
導致制帽人「發狂」的水銀，中世紀西方的冶金師即視它為神秘而不祥的物質，常有人用它來自殺；後人就懷疑叱吒一時，最後被放逐地中海小島的拿破侖，就是死於水銀中毒。