Report of the committee of the Westminster Medical Society, on arsenicated candles.

  • Westminster Medical Society (London, England)
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the committee of the Westminster Medical Society, on arsenicated candles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/68 (page 13)
    The experiments in A and B began at two p. M. Monday, the 27th November, and those in C and D at half-after three p. m. Tuesday, the 28th November ; and all of them were continued, from day to day, until Saturday evening, the 2nd December, beginning each day about ten o’clock A. M. and terminating at the same hour in the even¬ ing, when the cages were taken out, and all of them suspended in an ante-room, cleaned the next morning, and a fresh supply of food and water for the day administered, before they were again re¬ placed in the experimental boxes. A thermometer was suspended in each of these boxes, so as to be easily seen by the observer, and a strict watch kept by some member or other of the Committee, but especially by Dr. Scott, at whose house the experiments were made, respect¬ ing what was going on within the boxes in refer¬ ence to the state of the animals, their movements, and power of feeding, the temperature and venti¬ lation of the chambers, and the manner of burn¬ ing of the candles. All these remarks were in¬ stantly committed to writing as soon as made; and your Committee beg to lay before you this curious register, which extends over a week’s time, during which observations almost hourly were made for seventy-two hours. In the course of that period several pounds of arsenicated candles were burnt in A and C. As a general statement it may be remarked that, with the exception of the first day,