According to the newspaper account given by the link it was Acharya P. C. Ray.
HgNO3: mercurous nitrate is the earlier name for mercury (I) nitrate.
Essentially ALL the metallic nitrates are soluble, even mercurous nitrate, perhaps the only mercurous salt that is soluble.
Mercury could be reacted with Nitric acid to form Mercurous nitrate. Since hydrogen is less reactive than mercury, therefore mercury would not replace hydrogen from nitric acid but the nitrate ion could oxidize mercury ion and form mercurous chloride .
Hg22+ + NO3- -----> Hg2(NO3)2
The compound name for mercury nitrate is mercurous nitrate or mercury(I) nitrate, with the chemical formula HgNO3.
When mixed together, mercurous nitrate and sodium chloride undergo a double displacement reaction to form mercurous chloride and sodium nitrate. The balanced chemical equation for this reaction is 2Hg2(NO3)2 + 2NaCl → 2Hg2Cl2 + 2NaNO3.
According to the newspaper account given by the link it was first prepared by Acharya P. C. Ray.
One useful nugget is that essentially ALL nitrates are soluble - even mercurous nitrate, though essentially all mercurous salts are insoluble.
CAUTION: Do not perform this experiment anywhere except an fume-hood as it produces highly toxic Mercury vaporsOn boiling Mercurous nitrate in the presence of light, it disproportionates into elemental Mercury and Mercuric nitrate.Hg2(NO3)2 ----> Hg + Hg(NO3)2
According to the newspaper account given by the link it was first prepared by Acharya P. C. Ray.
Mercurous nitrate or mercury (I) nitrate, assuming that the formula given was the best approximation available to the questioner for Hg2(NO3)2.
The reaction is:Hg2(NO3)2 + 2 LiCl = 2 LiNO3 + Hg2Cl2