A report on arsenical poisoning by means of wall-papers, paints, etc. : presented to the Medical Society of London on the part of a committee of the Society / by Malcolm A. Morris.

  • Medical Society of London.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on arsenical poisoning by means of wall-papers, paints, etc. : presented to the Medical Society of London on the part of a committee of the Society / by Malcolm A. Morris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    In their replies to these questions, only fifty-four of the two hundred and twenty-four correspondents were able to afford particulars of cases of poisoning by this agent that had come under their personal observa- tion, but their remarks have reference to more than one hundred cases. A most important feature in this testimony, is that no fewer than twenty-four instances of the poisoning occurred in the persons of the medical men themselves, or in members of their families, which, in the first place, is very strong evidence of the difficulties attending the diagnosis of this form of poisoning, and, secondly, tends to show that the better opportunities for observation afforded to a medical man in his own house may lead to the detection of mischief which, from its insidious nature, baffles ordinary tests, or, by assuming symptoms of a general character, is often erroneously treated as indicating a different class of ailments. The following cases have occurred in the houses of medical men. Case i.—“ For more*than a year”, writes a practitioner of eminence, “ my own wife suffered repeated attacks (one of great severity) of enteritis. The patient was in the habit of sitting the greater part of the day in a room papered with green paper. Without any reference to the symptoms, the paper was accidentally changed to another colour. It was noticed by me afterwards that the symptoms had disappeared. It then occurred to me that it might be due to the green pigment; and, on testing a piece of the old paper, I found abundance of arsenic.” Case ii.—A physician and his wife suffered from conjunctivitis and from nausea after food. On the arrival of a relative, who soon was attacked in a similar manner, the cause was traced to the drawing-room paper, which contained arsenic. Case iii.—A distinguished consulting surgeon lost two children from enteritis. The cause of the illness was a mystery until after their death, when the nursery-paper, the pattern of which was a fuchsia, leaves and blossom on a brown ground, was found to contain arsenic. Case iv.—A medical man and wife suffered from headaches, nausea, and conjunctivitis, all of which were worse early in the morning. The symptoms abated when the bedroom paper was removed. It con- tained arsenic. Case V.—A surgeon suffered severely for several days from extreme depression, diarrhoea, griping, and asthma at night; and, his wife some