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.

    14/872 (page 4)
    C.—'Medical and Toxlcologiral Aspects of the epidemic. (12) The persons who have suffered by the epidemic in many instances have been ascertained to be heavy drinkers of beer. Nevertheless it is clear that others have suffered who probably drank quite moderate amounts of beer which there is no reason to believe was more arsenical than that which produced illness in heavy drinkers. In this connection we have received reports of researches as to the presence of arsenic in excretions of sufif'erers by the epidemic, in their skin and hair, and in their organs post-mortem, which have been important as constituting additions to medical knowledge of the affinity which certain tissues of the body apparently possess for arsenic, and which indicate that in certain conditions the elimination of arsenic may take place more slowly than has been hitherto generally supposed. (13) In our opinion the evidence obtained with regard to the epidemic suggests caution as necessary in comparing the effect of arsenic in small quantities taken at irregular intervals along with beer and in uncertain relation to food, with the effect of its medicinal administration under medical supervision. (14) It is necessary to draw attention to this further circumstance. Among the beer drinkers attacked by the epidemic were n^any whose symptoms were hardly, if at all, to be distinguished from those of the disease known as alcoholic peripheral neuritis, which hitherto it has been customary to associa,te with the consumption of large quantities of alcohol by spirit drinkers. Yet the persons attacked with disease closely simulating alcoholic peripheral neuritis were not in all cases heavy drinkers, nor was there reason to doubt that in their case arsenic in beer had been the essential cause of the illness. We have been informed by certain physicians in Manchester and Salford tliat from their local experience of alcoholic peripheral neuritis, they had l^efore the 1900 epidemic come to regard this disease as essentially one which affected beer drinkers. In this connection, too, the evidence suggests that in Manchester and Salford, for some years before 1900, alcoholic peripheral neuritis has been more common than in large towns in other parts of the country where, so far as is known, excessive drinking is no less common than in Manchester. We hope to obtain further facts with regard to this suggestion. D.—Arsenic in Beer premous to the epidemic. (15) Although the liability of beer to contain arsenic was not recognised before the epidemic, we cannot doubt that beer other than that brewed with the contaminated Bostock's brewing sugars of 1900, has in the past contained arsenic. Since the epidemic arsenic has been estimated, occasionally in quantities such as tV grain per gallon, and frequently in smaller amounts such as h to ihy grain, in the case of beers coming from certain breweries where Bostock's ingredients had not been used. E.— Ways in which Ar.^enic is liable to gain access to Beer. (16) We have received evidence that arsenic may be introduced into beer:— (a) By way of brewing sugars.—The epidemic has clearly demonstrated that if the mineral acid employed in the manufacture of glucose from starch, or of invert sugar from cane sugar, has been arsenical, beer prepared from these ingredients can become dangerously contaminated by arsenic. We have received no evidence which suggests that in the manufacture of brewing sugars other firms have permitted such a degree of risk as that which led to disaster in the case of Bostock and Co.; on the contrary, important firms of brewing sugar makers have testified that it has been their custom for many years past to take precautions to obtain a pure acid, and to test their acid for arsenic.