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.

    9/68 (page 7)
    As is generally the case in all matters of this kind, notwithstanding the notoriety of the practice among the trade, the public, whose welfare was likely to be affected by it, remained in ignorance of the fact, that in using the new Stearine candles they were burning arsenicated candles ; until Mr. Everitt mentioned the subject in a lecture de¬ livered in June last, before the Medico-Botanical Society—and again until Dr. Scott, in October, as stated in the introduction to this Report, brought it to the notice of the Westminster Medical So¬ ciety, and led them to the present investigation. The admission made by the parties themselves, who employed it, that arsenic was contained in the candles in question, might have been deemed suf¬ ficient for the purpose of the present investigation: but your Committee could not rest satisfied with¬ out verifying the fact by chemical analysis, and still less without ascertaining the quantity present in each candle : as that point was held to be of great importance in determining the probable injurious effects of such candles on the human constitution. Accordingly, a great many specimens of the candles in question, were procured from several shops, imd^r various denominations, and were submitted to accurate analysis. This was confided principally to Mr. Everitt, who repeated his ex¬ periments before several of the Members of the Committee, and whose results were afterwards III. Chemical Ex¬ periments TO PROV^E THE PRESENCE OF Arsenic. Appendix, page 38, and 'passim.