Poisonous books – Dangers from the past

[Alex Pratt]

The bright green pigments used to illustrate historic books could contain arsenic.

See this research by the University of St Andrews:

https://university-collections.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2025/02/24/poisonous-books-dangers-from-the-past/

Alex.

[Dr Richard John McKim]

A fascinating post, Alex.

Yes, the good old bright green pigment known as copper arsenate….. The Victorians were fond of it, and used it even for colouring sweets. Mind you, they probably had more arsenic in their bodies from other sources. There is a famous story about this pigment, also called Paris Green, where it was used in wallpapers. In damp conditions fungal growth on wallpaper breaks down the pigment to the very toxic gas arsine, or arsenic trihydride. Now that is very toxic indeed. In confinement on the prison island of Elba, Napoleon was once thought to have been poisoned by the decomposition of his somewhat damp green wallpaper, which was shown to contain Paris Green, but I think the verdict was that his death was due to other factors. Of course there were many sources of poisonous compounds. White paint was then lead sulfate, and Cadmium yellow was a very toxic and popular pigment for artists. Not to mention medicines like calomel (Mercury chloride). Take your pick!

In summary I would not get too excited about green coloured Victorian books, unless you have a big pile of mouldy damp ones. The Victorians certainly knew how to poison themselves.

[Alex Pratt]

Thanks for the additional background, Richard.

The article mentions sweet wrappers and wallpapers. A Doc Martin TV episode was based on the premise that a patient’s erratic behaviour was caused by their very old wallpaper!

Alex.

[Dr Paul Leyland]

Richard: the Elizabethans were well practised too and, with the advantage of an additional century of technological development, were able to do so on an industrial scale. Remember DDT? Remember the Camelford incident which is well described in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelford_water_pollution_incident where not only were people left with aluminium deposits in their brain, lead from piping was also leached into drinking water? How about tetraethyl lead added to petrol?

Incidentally, and speaking as an ex-chemist, the dangers of Pb poisoning are almost universally misunderstood. Organic lead compounds, such as PbEt_4_ are really, really nasty. A few milligrams will kill you and quite rapidly too. Soluble inorganic lead compounds do pretty nasty things to the CNS. Insoluble lead compounds are arguably helpful — a coating of lead sulphate or carbonate on the inside of lead water pipes which is naturally produced in hard water districts prevents soluble lead compounds leaching out. Metallic lead is virtually harmless, unless injected en masse into the body at high velocity. Many people live for decades with several grams of Pb inside them, especially where the location of the bullet makes surgery to remove it a markedly higher risk than to just let it be.

I’m sure that you as another ex-chemist are well aware of the content of the previous paragraph.

Paul

[Dr Richard John McKim]

Thank you Paul. There was even a Victorian police detective series in which there was a plot to blow up a factory making Paris Green, to contaminate London. And what about those glass lenses and eyepieces that contained high concentrations of Uranium…..? But although we can enjoy this as fellow chemists, I think we are getting a little off topic, so I had better force myself to stop.

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