I started with a capsule and stretched then added more subdivisions. I made my object editable so that I could make a loop selection of 1 segment.

With my selection made, I chose the scale tool to reduce size using all axis

This is the result.

I chose a glass material and assigned.

I add a floor and after trying out different materials, I decide on a red velvet

so far so good

I made the temperature scale in InDesign then exported as a n eps.

I opened the eps file in Photoshop, made a selection of it and created an alpha channel to use later.

Next I create a gradient fill going from red to black and add a layer mask from my selection.

This is the result. I save the file as a tif checking the alpha channel box.

I created my blob of Mercury with a sphere.

I assigned the melt deformer to my sphere and adjusted the strength of the melt until I got the desired effect.

This is the result. The material assigned to this is a Chrome material with increased reflectivity.

I chose a tube to create the Mercury reservoir and positioned in the centre of my thermometer. I also used a tube for the paper insert that lies just under the reservoir. I made selections of a number of faces of this tube to delete so that my paper insert is curved.

The glass housing for the reservoir is also a tube with a glass material added.

For the Mercury well I used another capsule, made it editable and manipulated some of the faces. This capsule is slightly smaller than the main body of the thermometer.

To add my temperature scale that I made earlier, I had to create a new material and in the color field I loaded my tif file as a texture. I then checked the alpha field and loaded the tif file as a texture again. I am using the alpha channel from my PS tif file to just select the type and not the background. I then assign my new material to the thermometer so that I have the glass material and the new material with type. I then had to go to the display drop down menu and choose stacked materials. This will place one material on top of another.

This is the type on the thermometer. I chose a flat projection with tiling unchecked. I used the move texture tool to get into position. I then scaled to cover the length of the thermometer.
I got all my pieces of the puzzle positioned duped, my Mercury blob a couple of times with adjusted melt strengths. I made a few extra cuts to the neck of the thermometer so that I could make it look like it was broken, messed about with lights, turned on Ambient Occlusion and Global Illumination set my render size and rendered to the Picture Viewer. I saved my file as a tif, opened it in Photoshop, tweaked the curves to give a little contrast and saved as a jpeg.