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.

    62/66 (page 62)
    Messieurs Deyeux, Barreul, Gauthier de Claubry, Chevallier, and Cadet de Gassicourt were appointed to make a report on this subject, The result of the experiments, made in the Labora¬ tory of the School of Medicine, by the members of the Commission, was, that each of the “ Etoile” candles, such as Messrs. --now supply to the trade, yields, when properly treated by boiling distilled wrater and hydro-sulphuric acid, a sulphuret of arsenic, from the weight of which, it is estimated, that the quantity of arsenic, in each, is more than three quarters of a grain. Messrs.—--—after some denials, at length admitted, that in order to render their saponified fats more combustible, they employed an ounce of arsenic per quintal, and that formerly they made use of it in a larger proportion. The presence of a sufficiently appreciable quantity of arsenic in the Etoile candles being verified, it became necessary to ascertain the probable noxious effects, (of whatever nature they might he) which it might occa¬ sion—whether as regards the slow and repeated action which arsenical vapour arising from combustion, must exercise, to a certain degree, upon the animal economy, especially in weak, suffering, and nervous persons: or the danger of putting into the hands of the public an article in common use, containing a violent instru¬ ment of destruction, to which despair and malevolence frequently resort.* Whatever impression may have been made, by the opinion of the Commission of the * In England.every body is at liberty to purchase as much arsenic as he pleases ; whereas in France, the sale of it is confined to Medical Men, Artificers, or Manufacturers. But even in this country, the consideration whether the means of easily procuring a fatal dose of arsenic, (through the mere acquisition of a couple of Stearine Candles) shall be placed in the hands of the evil minded, is one of no trilling moment.— Note of the Reporter.