A little over-stated, I suspect.

People get burned in labs by HF all the time. No big deal, morbidity-wise.

But, HF is a peculiar acid, due to small atomic sizes of the atoms and their
high electronegativities.
HF is in fact a relatively *weak* acid, but the burns/tissue damage that it
can cause are particularly irksome and nasty in part because it is small and
relatively weak.
Here's why:
Because it does not completely dissociate (definition of a weak acid), and
because it is small, it gets absorbed fairly readily into cells as an intact
non-ionic molecule and then dissociates (ie, acts as an acid) *inside the
cell*, causing real ****ty hard-to-heal ulcerations.

These same properties may be quite related to why HF etches glass, but, say,
HCl does not. Proly a really interesting mechanism, whereby the small HF
molecule is able to sort of intercalate between Si and O, and the higher
electronegativity of Fl over O then takes over... mebbe....

Nitric acid is also an interesting/complicated acid (an oxidizing acid), so
I can only imagine the combination of HNO3 and HF that someone mentioned.
FYI, aqua regia, a mixture of HNO3 and HCl, a really noxious combo, is what
dissolves gold, platinum, and proly a couple of other heavy metals.

Or so I learnt.
--
Mr. P.V.'d
formerly Droll Troll
"HeyBub" wrote in message
...
"Nick Müller" wrote:
Proctologically Violated©® wrote:

I know glass can be etched w/ HF (hydrofluoric) acid, but even that
doesn't do this kind of globby disfiguring, afaict.

The nice thing about HF is, that it will stop those ar*eho*es from
destroying other's goods. Sooner or later. evilgrin

To be more specific, Hydroflouic acid is an extreme posion. Slight
exposure will cause death by removing calcium from the blood stream. Lack
of calcium causes a heart attack. Death is not immediate (a few hours),
but it is irreversible.