[An unusual case of panarteritis nodosa associated with chronic mercury poisoning (author's transl)].

In a 50-year-old woman, working as a dental assistant for more than ten years, chronic mercury poisoning developed insidiously, apparently from careless handling of mercury-amalgam. The main signs consisted of mental and neurological changes such as erethism, tremor and mercurial psellism. Peripheral arterial circulatory disorders occurred in the course of the disease, as well as abdominal colic and a polyneuropathy, which provided the first clues to panarteritis nodosa subsequently confirmed histologically.