First report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into arsenical poisoning [1900] from the consumption of beer and other articles of food or drink.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Arsenical Poisoning.
Date:
1901-1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: First report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into arsenical poisoning [1900] from the consumption of beer and other articles of food or drink. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    11/872
    To THE King's Most Excellent Majesty. May it please your Majesty, We, the undersigned Commissioners, appointed on February 4th last to inquire into the subject of arsenical poisoning, do humbly submit to your Majesty the following Report:— We have now held 18 sittings in London and in Manchester, and we have examined fifty-one witnesses. The subject which your Majesty has referred to the Commission involves various administrative, scientific, and technical questions, which it is necessary for us to pursue further. We think, however, that a stage has been reached at which it is well for us to avail ourselves of your Majesty's gracious permission to report our proceed- ings from time to time, and to summarise in a first Report the conclusions at which we have arrived from the evidence already received. This we propose to do under the following heads :— A. —The extent of recent exceptional sickness and death in England and Wales attributable to poisoning by arsenic. B. —The causation of this recent epidemic of poisoning by beer which had become contaminated by arsenic. C. —Certain medical and toxicological aspects of this epidemic. D. —Arsenic in beer previous to this epidemic. E. —Ways in which arsenic is liable to gain access to beer. F. —Arsenic-free beer. G. —Arsenic in articles of food and drink other than beer. H. —Administrative considerations. A. — The extent of the recent exceptional sickness and death in England a7id Wales attributable to poisoning by arsenic. (1) During the latter part of 1900 there occurred in England and Wales exceptional sickness and death attributable to poisoning by arsenic. This sickness, which assumed epidemic proportions, has principally affected districts in Lancashire and Staffordshire, but its incidence has not been confined to those counties. The epidemic appears to have attacked Man- chester and its neighbourhood more seriously than elsewhere. In the County Boroughs of Manchester and Salford alone the Medical Officers of Health estimate that at least 3,000 persons suffered by it. (2) By inviting the co-operation of Medical Officers of Health throughout the country, by seeking information from the Statistical Department of the Office of the Registrar General, and in other ways, the Commission has taken steps to obtain information as to the extent, local distribution, and fatality of this exceptional sickness. B. —The causation of the recent epidemic of arsetiical poisoriing. (3) The evidence which we have received from physicians, medical ofiicers of health, and others, has been uniformly to the effect that this epidemic sickness and death was attributable to beer which had become con- taminated with arsenic at numerous breweries ; that when, at the end of November, 1900, arsenic was indicated by Dr. E. S. Reynolds, of Man- chester, as the cause of the epidemic in that city, beer from these breweries