Report of the Committee appointed by the Westminster Medical Society, to investigate the subject of adulterating candles with arsenic; and to ascertain the probable effect of the use of such candles upon health and life ... / transcribed and reprinted by James Scott.

  • Westminster Medical Society (London, England)
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee appointed by the Westminster Medical Society, to investigate the subject of adulterating candles with arsenic; and to ascertain the probable effect of the use of such candles upon health and life ... / transcribed and reprinted by James Scott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/66 (page 18)
    to arsenical vapours. The last struggle of one of them was for water; and the position in which it expired is so striking an evidence of that fact, that your Committee have deemed it right to leave the cage undisturbed, in order that the Society may see how the little creature, having, reached the cup, and by stretching its neck over the edge of it, succeeded in dipping its beak into the fluid, and expired in that very position. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. With respect to these seven birds which died in the course of a week, your Committee will only offer a few general observations, in addition to the symptoms already specified. First, it was remarked that they drank, at least, four times as much water as the other birds not exposed to the arsenicated candles; that when they had taken a seed into the beak and broken the shell, they resorted to the water and immersed the bill, before they swallowed the seed; that they gra¬ dually lost their inclination for food; and, lastly, that they were affected, during the best part of the experiments, with diarrhoea accompanied by a continual propulsive and retractive action of the anus. The discharge was a greenish serous fluid, very different from the feculent matter of birds. The bodies of five of these animals were con¬ fided, for chemical examination, to Mr. G. Bird, who reported, that distinct though minute traces of arsenic were found in them, under circum-