CURIOSITIES OF ARSENIC

Hokitika Guardian, 8 January 1921, Page 4

CURIOSITIES OF ARSENIC

(By a Aledical Correspondent)

Arsenic is so extensively used in the industries and arts that it is believed that there arc few of us who have not a little of it in our bodies.

Formerly a good deal of chronic poisoning resulted from arsenic in wallpaper, the poison being given of! in powder and also as a gas in warm, moist weather. .Many wall-papers still contain very small quantities of the poison. If is also present in some artificial flowers, in carpets,- furs, dress fabrics dyed with aniline dyes, and in black stockings. It has been found in many cosmetic preparations which women use to improve the complexion and brilliancy of the eyes, accidents from these preparations being on record. Dr .Murrell examined a number of coloured tobacco and cigarette covers and found avsenic in one-thifrd of them. Used as an insecticide for spraying fruit it remains on the skins and is sometimes eaten.

Glucose very frequently contains arsenic and thence it finds its way into jams and beer. Many persons were poisoned in Manchester some years ago by arsenic in beer made with glucose and the analyses of the Government analyst show that the poison is present in small quantities in many samples of beer.

Of course, these minute doses seldom do any harm, but in some people they produce chronic poisoning with loss rf hair, neuritis, and other evil results.

This drug is poisonous to all animals with a central nervous system, (brain or spinal cord) and to most of the higher plants. Alice show the greatest resistance and next conic hedge hogs, rabbits, dogs, and eats It is believed that the smallest fatal dose for tin adult human being is 2 grains, but people have taken a very much greater quantity and recovered. By practice one can get used to large doses; the mountaineers of Styria <at as much as 8 grains two or three times ti week and find the dose a good tonic. «■ * * * *

Ldiiii ;i <j;< > arsenic u'iis extensively used tor the purposes of murder, and A!mo. Toffania, an Italian lias become immortal in tin* annals of crime from her preparation, tlie “Aqua Taffana," made from animals poisoned with arsenic. Although many deaths still occur by accident or suicide, arsenic is seldom used for criminal poisoning by intelligent people now, because the analyst can find if in the body for years after deatli. II lias a peculiarly preservative effect, and in one case of exhumation after 07. J months’ burial (that of John Flanagan of Liverpool' in 1884) the face and hotly could easily be identified.

There has been great epidemics of accidental arsenic poisoning. The most remarkable ease was that in Paris in 1828, when 40,000 people were poisoned. Also there have been many accidents from weed-killers, and in !903 an analysis of sweets ;n the Isle of Wight revealed the presence of l-15 Hi. of a grain per pound. A curious fact is that when a person takes arsenic it finds its way into the hair within about two weeks and stays there for years.