Irish Famine (1740–41) affect economies, energy sources, and politics. Although no barometric or temperature readings for Ireland survive from the Great Frost, a scattered few records survive from Englishmen who made personal readings. The mercury thermometer was invented 25 years earlier by the German pioneer Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. Indoor values during January 1740 were as low as . The one outdoor reading that has survived was stated as "thirty-two degrees of frost." This did not include the effects of the wind chill factor, which would have been severe. This kind of weather was "quite outside the Irish experience," notes David Dickson, author of
Kodaikanal mercury poisoning in Kodaikanal originated at a thermometer factory that was owned by Hindustan Unilever. Unilever acquired the thermometer factory from cosmetics maker Pond's India Ltd. Pond's moved the factory from the United States to India in 1982 after the plant owned there by its parent, Chesebrough-Pond's, had to be dismantled following increased awareness in developed countries of polluting industries. In 1987, Pond's India and the thermometer factory went to Hindustan Unilever when it acquired Cheseborough-Pond's globally. The factory imported mercury from the United States, and exported finished thermometers to markets in the United States and Europe. Around 2001, a number of