Chapter XXI: Arsenic

Arsenic is employed for colouring purposes in various arts and industries, and may produce injurious effects on the workers and on others who are exposed to the influence of the poison. A Committee of the Medical Society of London, of which I was secretary some twenty years ago, compiled from the information collected by them the following list of articles in which arsenical pigments, dyes, and mordants were used.

Paper, fancy and surface coloured, in sheets for covering cardboard boxes; for labels of all kinds; for advertisement cards, playing cards, wrappers for sweetmeats, cosaques, etc.; for the ornamentation of children’s toys; for covering children’s and other books; for lamp shades, paperhangings for walls and other purposes; artificial leaves and flowers; wax ornaments for Christmas trees and other purposes; printed or woven fabrics intended for use as garments; printed or woven fabrics intended for use as curtains or coverings for furniture; children’s toys, particularly inflated indiarubber balls with dry colour inside, painted indiarubber dolls, stands and rockers of rocking-horses and the like, glass balls (hollow); distemper colour for decorative purposes; oil paint for the same; lithographers’ colour printing; decorated tin plates, including painted labels used by butchers and others to advertise the price of provisions; japanned goods generally; Venetian and other blinds; American or leather cloth; printed table baizes; carpets, floorcloth, linoleum, book cloth and fancy bindings. To this list may be added coloured soaps, wafers, sweetmeats, and false malachite. Arsenic is also used in the preparation of skins for stuffing and of some preservatives used by anatomists. Workers employed in the manufacture of any of these things may suffer from the effects of the arsenic contained in the materials which they handle. The fluid known as “sheep dip,” which is sold for the purpose of killing tic on sheep, contains a large quantity of arsenic. Occasionally the men who manufacture the liquid or who wash the workmen’s clothes have suffered from the effects of arsenic upon their extremities and nervous system.

The metal is mostly employed in the form of green arsenites of copper, known as Scheele’s green, and Schweinfurt or Vienna green. The poison gains admission to the system either by being carried into the mouth on the hands and thence taken into the stomach, or by inhalation into the lungs.

In the preparation of artificial flowers Scheele’s green is powdered over the leaves, and in this process some of the dust is drawn in with the breath, while some may lodge in the furrows of the skin and under the nails. In the manufacture of green wallpapers Scheele’s green and the aceto-arsenite of copper are mainly used; from 1 grain of the poisonous substance to 50 or 60 grains per square foot has been found in different samples. Arsenic has been found in red, orange, brown, and grey papers as well as green. The poisonous material may be dusted off the wallpapers and distributed through the atmosphere of the room. Bamberg, of Stockholm detected arsenic in the atmosphere of a room that had been papered for twenty-five or thirty years. According to Parkes and Kenwood,[75] in the case of the smoother papers arseniuretted hydrogen is formed by decomposition of the size and paste acting chemically on the arsenical salt. The same authors point out that even distempered walls must not be assumed to be innocuous, as there is frequently arsenic in distemper which is mixed with size to make it adhere, thus forming a combination of organic matter and arsenic ready for the development of arseniuretted hydrogen.

Persons living in rooms hung with arsenicated wallpapers, and workmen who strip walls or hang pictures, are liable to suffer from the inhalation of the poisonous dust or vapour. Injurious effects may also be caused by the use of green lamp shades, and of gloves, stockings, and other articles of clothing coloured with aniline dyes in the preparation of which arsenic is largely employed. The use of arsenic in many of the arts that have been enumerated, and particularly in the manufacture of wallpapers and in the tinting of textile and silken fabrics intended for furnishing and clothing purposes, also of arsenical colours, has greatly diminished since attention was called to the danger of these by the Medical Society and by sanitarians, among whom the late Mr Henry Carr[76] deserves special mention. Yet, as is proved by cases which are from time to time reported in the papers, they are still too much employed.

_Symptoms._--The symptoms are those of chronic arsenical poisoning, and may vary in severity from slight inflammation of the eyes or conjunctivitis, and running at the nose, or coryza, to prostration, or convulsions ending in death. The strong are attacked as well as the weak. In the slighter forms of the affection they are marked by conjunctivitis, running at the nose, and injection, with dryness and soreness of the throat, accompanied by depression. In more severe forms there is headache with colicky pain and abdominal “cramps,” with vomiting, diarrhœa, and sometimes dysentery; the throat and mouth are sore and parched; there is great thirst, with distaste for food. The congested condition of the respiratory passages manifests itself by cough and bronchial catarrh, sometimes by asthma. If the cause is not removed the affection may last indefinitely in a stage of more or less troublesome indisposition, or the prolonged gastro-intestinal derangement may gradually undermine the health and exhaust the patient. In some cases the nervous system suffers most; there is increasing depression, with restlessness and insomnia; in certain severe cases paralysis of the extremities occurs, with convulsions ending in death. This, however, is altogether exceptional, and indeed death from arsenical poisoning of what may be called industrial origin is decidedly rare.

In certain cases arsenic produces local as well as general effects. According to Arlidge[77] workers employed in the manufacture of arsenical green often exhibit peculiar symptoms. That product is derived from arsenite of soda, which is decomposed by sulphate of copper, and the resultant treated with pyroligneous acid.

The workers are liable to the development of boils and pimples, and suffer from an itching eruption about the nostrils and in the flexures of the arms. In severer cases there is headache with thirst and nausea, and an irritating eruption appears on the scrotum. Vomiting, quickening of the pulse, and conjunctival injection are observed in some persons. In workmen employed in the calcining or “burning” houses for arsenical ores the fumes produce sometimes gastric disturbances, sometimes bronchial and laryngeal irritation. The commonest effect is the production of an eruption about the genitals and on the exposed parts of the body, especially at the bends of the limbs. Stockings, handkerchiefs, gloves, etc., dyed with aniline colours often cause severe irritation, especially on the skin of delicate women and children. This ought never to occur, for if the process is rightly carried out no arsenic passes into the finished dye.

_Treatment and Prophylaxis._--The first principle of treatment is removal of the cause. The symptoms will then, in the great majority of cases, spontaneously disappear. Debility or other conditions calling for active measures should be treated _secundum artem_.

As regards the prophylaxis, in trades where exposure to the arsenic is unavoidable, sanitary precautions on the same lines as those taken against lead poisoning should be enforced. For colouring purposes arsenical colours are unnecessary. In the dyeing of textile fabrics and in the tinting of papers they should be absolutely prohibited.

No paper should be placed on a wall unless it be guaranteed free from arsenic, and even with a guarantee from the manufacturer it is advisable to test a piece with Marsh’s apparatus to make sure.

MALCOLM MORRIS.