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.

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    bird became again affected, and in an hour more it died. Its death was followed by that of the second bird half an hour later. These two birds had been in an arsenicated atmosphere for seven hours and a-half altogether. Three more linnets were immediately put into the cage of chamber A, with two arsenicated can¬ dles instead of four. In about four hours they became dull and stupefied on their perch, although, at first, they appeared particularly the reverse.: they seemed much inconvenienced for the rest of that day. On Wednesday three Stearine can¬ dles with arsenic were lighted, and the three birds who had recovered in the course of the preceding night, were not long in exhibiting symptoms of uneasiness. They drooped their wings, breathed laboriously, and kept their beaks constantly open. They continued so through that day. On the following day, two of them became much more distressed three hours after exposure to the candles ; an hour later one of them fell, as if from vertigo, from its perch, and in half an hour it died. The day after witnessed the death of its two remaining companions, although when replaced in their chamber A, at ten o’clock that morning, they appeared to have recovered their usual state of health. On that day, at twelve o’clock, one of these latter birds had been seen to gasp for life, unable to remain on the perch, and the other