The improved pretreatment method for the determination of total mercury was investigated, because the usual wet decomposition method is relatively time-consuming and requires a large amounts of reagents for digestion of the samples such as household products and environmental materials. Samples measuring 0.01-1.0g were taken into the test tube (10ml), and then the mixture of florisil and calcium oxide (10:1) was added to the 10ml mark, followed by heating at 500-550°C for 20min. The evaporated mercury was sucked out by an aspirator into a 0.2% potassium permanganate solution, and the collected mercury was measured by flameless atomic absorption spectrometry. Satisfactory reproducibility and not less than 95% of the recovery were obtained by this method. This practical apparatus could treat six samples at the same time. None of the tested household products in this experiment contained over the level of 1.0ppm of mercury (organic) the regulated value provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.