The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play

by James C. Whorton

Arsenic is rightly infamous as the poison of choice for Victorian murderers. Yet the great majority of fatalities from arsenic in the nineteenth century came not from intentional poisoning, but from accident.

Kept in many homes for the purpose of poisoning rats, the white powder was easily mistaken for sugar or flour and often incorporated into the family dinner. It was also widely present in green dyes, used to tint everything from candles and candies to curtains, wallpaper, and clothing (it was arsenic in old lace that was the danger). Whether at home amidst arsenical curtains and wallpapers, at work manufacturing these products, or at play swirling about the papered, curtained ballroom in arsenical gowns and gloves, no one was beyond the poison's reach.

Drawing on the medical, legal, and popular literature of the time, The Arsenic Century paints a vivid picture of its wide-ranging and insidious presence in Victorian daily life, weaving together the history of its emergence as a nearly inescapable household hazard with the sordid story of its frequent employment as a tool of murder and suicide. And ultimately, as the final chapter suggests, arsenic in Victorian Britain was very much the pilot episode for a series of environmental poisoning dramas that grew ever more common during the twentieth century and still has no end in sight.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, True Crime, Victorian, Medicine, Historical

412 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[verbava · Rating 4 out of 5]

«миш'якове століття» – це книжка про те, що британці не мали б пережити вікторіанську епоху, але якимось дивом змогли (і навіть примудрилися розмножитися).

миш'як у пиві? check. в одязі? check. в іграшках? check. у меблях? check. у ліках? check. у милі? check. у свічках? check. миш'як, куплений, щоб труїти щурів, але випадково доданий у їжу, бо де його ще зберігати, як не на поличці в кухні, у банці з написом «сода»? check, check, check.

коли я читала про пастеризоване молоко, а точніше, непастеризоване молоко, від якого ще в 1930-х роках помирало по кілька тисяч британців на рік, але уряд не вважав за доцільне зобов'язувати виробників пастеризувати продукцію, бо кожен має мати право пити те молоко, яке йому подобається, мені було дивно і трохи кумедно. за читанням про століття, упродовж якого британці споживали миш'як із води й повітря (в буквальному сенсі), але уряд не вважав за доцільне і так далі, дивно вже не було. зате кумедно – весь час. це страшенно смішна книжка, якщо ви цінуєте макабричний гумор.

[rabbitprincess · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely fascinating look at the Victorian period from the perspective of everyone's favourite poison -- arsenic, the murderer's friend, "inheritance powder", odourless and tasteless and therefore very easily mistaken ("mistaken"?) for baking powder or sugar. Whorton takes us through every aspect of life that was touched by arsenic, starting of course with its use for homicidal purposes, before wending his way through food and drink, occupational exposure, everyday household objects, clothing and medications, before ending with a look at arsenic-contaminated beer. (Oh the horror!)

Whorton writes extremely well, with clear logical connections that steer the reader along. The work is sprinkled with judiciously chosen quotes (the chapter titles in particular are excellent: "Death that Lies Wait in the Pint-Pot", "A Very Wholesome Poison") and the details are excellent. For example, apparently the mucous membranes in the stomach retain arsenic, so even if an unfortunate victim is vomiting incessantly, the poison is still embedded in their system. The description of an arsenic victim's stomach as "glittering with diamond-like arsenic crystals" is spooky but also kind of cool if you have a taste for the macabre.

Now this book is a really interesting read on its own, but I was also impressed by Whorton's ability to tie arsenic scares and contaminations to modern-day issues, such as the past decade's drive to eliminate trans fats from food, and the ongoing difficulty of getting politicians to apply regulation to force manufacturers to do the right thing and eliminate hazardous materials from their products. He also closes with a comment about all of the new chemical products we bring into our homes every day, some of which have never existed before and whose long-term effects on health are as yet unknown.

The book also includes some illustrations, not too many but again very judiciously chosen (although to be honest I could have done without the picture on page 298). The text tends to speak for itself for the most part.

To sum up, this is highly recommended for anyone interested in the Victorian period, murder mysteries (especially those of the Golden Age), environmental issues or chemistry.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars!

This is yet another one of those books which makes you wonder how anyone managed to make it out of the Nineteenth Century alive?...

Arsenic had been used as a medicine in limited ways since the time of Hippocrates. It is perfectly safe to swallow, only becoming toxic when it combines with other elements to form compounds. The likes of Scheele’s green ensured that Arsenic was forever associated with the colour green, but Arsenic compounds were also to be found in blues, reds, yellows, browns, greys and whites.

The deadly substance was found in the wallpaper in children’s wards and houses (by 1858 a manufacturer could venture an estimate that as many as 100 million square miles of arsenic coloured paper were to be found on the walls of homes in Great Britain), on the curtains of a mental asylum ward, it covered children’s books, it wrapped sweets, it was on labels, posters, concert tickets, envelopes (including the section you licked), playing cards, fake flowers, candles, pots, bowls and wine bottles as well as gloves, boots and many other items of clothes.

Apparently illness affected residents in a village in Peru in 2007 after vaporised arsenic compounds emerged from a crashed meteor. During the reign of Henry VIII poisoners were held to be so despicable the punishment prescribed for them was to be boiled alive, lowered ever so slowly feet first into the steaming water.

The Bradford poisonings of 1858, where Joseph Neal, a greedy, deceitful shop owner sent someone to buy some “daft” a nickname for plaster of Paris, a cheap substitute for sugar used to adulterate peppermint humbug lozenges, which went onto kill at least 21 and poison hundreds more. This eventually led to the belated implementation of the Pharmacy Act 1868.

Then there was the Manchester beer epidemic of 1900, resulting in at least 6’000 cases and at least 70 deaths after the working classes ingested too much of the cheap Fourpenny ale. It later turned out that cheap beer was being made with arsenical sugar in place of good barley by a Liverpool firm Bostock and Co. which supplied around 200 breweries in the North and the Midlands.

For years many doctors and others found it all too easy to mistake cholera for arsenic poisoning due to the many similarities with the symptoms, but this was later solved with some scientific developments. And of course those with the vested commercial interests adopted what is now an all too familiar template, one used by tobacco, pharma and oil et al, though nowadays backed by phenomenally powerful lawyers and PR firms, largely consisting of creating doubt, feeding mis-information and of course just outright lying, for as long as possible to squeeze as much profit as possible, taking as little responsibility as possible, regardless of the cost of human health and lives.

In some ways this works well as a really compelling social history, but I felt it was simply too long and it started to feel a little bit tedious and predictable, reading like a succession of poisoning stories, which soon gets old, and there seems to be a labouring of the Blandy case in the earlier parts. There is a lot of really interesting history and facts in here, but it would have benefited from more stringent editing as after a while it got a little too dry.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll go on record as saying I am utterly bewildered as to how anyone in Great Britain survived the 19th century.

Going by this book, it seems like EVERYTHING was out to get people. Their books, wallpaper, dresses, sweets, hats....even their socks were out to get them!

The most shocking thing about the book was learning that the government of Great Britain over that century were more interested in keeping industry going than protecting the lives of their citizens. It took several major poisoning outbreaks for them to actually legislate against arsenic, and even then the legislation was piss weak.

Not a book for those without a strong stomach as the descriptions get a little graphic. No photos, thank goodness, but could have done without the artist's illustration of a scrotum suffering from arsenic pock. Yuk doesn't begin to cover it.

A good book for anyone interested in toxins, British legal and medical history, and British history in general.

[Heideblume · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se nelle scorse settimane non mi fossi imbattuta nel canale Youtube di una revivalista vittoriana* probabilmente, di fronte a questo libro, avrei semplicemente fissato i colori della copertina per qualche minuto traendone sommo godimento e l'avrei riposto sullo scaffale; i suoi video invece, ricchi di curiosità e trucchetti, mi hanno convinta a scavare a mia volta nel passato e chiedermi cosa mai si avesse da dire sull'arsenico per 400 pagine.
Il risultato ha soddisfatto di gran lunga le mie aspettative eppure non mi sento di dare un voto superiore alle 3 stelle a causa della forma: l'autore si dilunga spesso su aneddoti irrilevanti e tende a portare avanti per almeno 3 pagine vicende e concetti che ha già sviscerato nei capitoli precedenti arrivando ad annacquare un prodotto che, altrimenti, poteva vincere per l'immediatezza. Stiamo pur sempre parlando di un libro divulgativo, non di uno studio accademico.

* (link al canale: https://www.youtube.com/user/czekolad... )

[Carolyn Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

No doubt about it this was a fairly dense read, but I found it fascinating! Arsenic was in EVERYTHING. It was in your candy, your makeup, your beer, your carpet, your wallpaper, your MEDICINE. Far beyond the usual treatises on murder by arsenical poisoning, this is a fantastic look at corporate corruption, public opinion, government regulation, and social justice, both in the Victorian era and as applicable today.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dry, but fortunately that extends to the humor Whorton interjects in places. Definitely grimly fascinating.

[Mary Whisner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lively writing and interesting stories woven through some of my favorite subjects: England, science, and crime.

Some readers might find that there are a few too many stories of poisoners, but I liked them. Ooh, that sounds wrong. It's not that I liked the idea of a mother poisoning her children to get the money from the small burial plans for them—or any of the other horrible stories, but I thought they were interesting. And face it, anyone who's read shelves of murder mysteries or watched a fair bit of television crime dramas has enjoyed some pretty disturbing plots, too. (If you like the forensic angle, see also The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.)

It wasn't all murder. Arsenic was also widely used in a lot of products in Victorian England— popular green wallpapers (including those produced by William Morris's company), paints, ball gowns, and more. The young working women making artificial flowers for the hats of wealthy women often became very sick, as did the men who made and hung wallpaper (and removed it once the homeowners realized the wallpaper was dangerous). (The arsenical wallpaper was also discussed in At Home: A Short History of Private Life.)

There were also horrible accidents, like the candy maker who accidentally used arsenic when he meant to use plaster of Paris (one can intend to adulterate food without intending to kill children!). The brewers in Manchester used glucose in addition to barley malt. Alas, a huge batch of glucose was made with sulphuric acide that was tainted with arsenic. Hence the beer was poisonous, and thousands of people sickened during the "Manchester beer epidemic" in the summer of 1900.

Some people even took arsenic intentionally, often prescribed by their doctors. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess.

The arsenic story provides an interesting contrast between England and the continent. France and Germany regulated arsenic much more tightly long before England did, largely because of England's commitment to laissez-faire.

[Big Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a morbid but well-researched exploration of the many types of death and injury caused by arsenic poisoning in Victorian Britain. Whorton provides a thorough overview of cases from throughout the era to illustrate the harms of arsenic, which range from intentional murders to accidentical mix ups (such as the candymaker who added arsenic to his candy cut the costs on sugar thinking it was only plaster of Paris), to unknowing contamination (beware the colour green!).

What makes this book truly chilling is that instead of just allowing us to laugh at the folly of the Victorians from a place of smug, modern superiority, Whorton reminds us that today we are tampering with even more unregulated chemicals. At least people sort of knew what arsenic was! Who the heck even knows what is going on in our own food, clothing, and furniture. So even though this book is hyper arsenic-specific, I appreciated how the author widens the scope by warning us of the dangers of an unregulated capitalist market where profit is priority.

[Rebecca Larsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was certainly an interesting read and an eye opener to the advancements in science and technology over the past few centuries.

The first part of the book is the most interesting, with the explanation of arsenic poisoning from wallpapers and fabrics. I found this fascinating (probably in hindsight).

The second half of the book is a little laborious, and the time spent describing arsenic byproduct in beer was a little long for me.

Overall an eye opening read.

[Robin Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely fantastic and incredibly informative account of what must be one of the biggest public health scandals of the 19th century. In the 1800s arsenic was part of pretty much every industry and household good - in sweets, in wine, in wallpaper, in medicine (no, really, it was), in children's toys, in clothes ...

There are so many fascinating, horrifying stories, well-told and extremely well-researched. It's incredibly wide-ranging - at times the examples given seem almost too much. But the problem is that Whorton just has too many examples to choose from. An amazing story, very well told, and an invaluable research book for all writers of children's murder mysteries (not that Whorton probably anticipated this use of his book).

[Catherine Richmond]

As a comprehensive look at the impact of one chemical on life in 19th century Britain, this book could have titled, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Arsenic, But Were Afraid to Ask." Arsenic was common and inexpensive. Uses for the chemical ranged from murder to wallpaper. I intended to research a few questions for a story I'm working on, but ended up reading the entire book. Editing to remove duplications would have been appreciated. I enjoyed the deft touches of humor, such as "Sheep dip stories could be recounted till the cows come home."

[slauderdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less reviewed than it is discussed in my blog post, "Adventures in Morbid Non-fiction": https://librarianslauderdale.wordpres...

"Fashion Victims," like "Bitten by Witch Fever," also cited Whorton’s book, so I finally gave in and requested "The Arsenic Century" through ComCat. ... No wonder everyone was citing it. It’s a fascinating, occasionally funny, always horrifying, and terrifically thorough survey of the prevalence, and the many and devastating effects, of arsenic in Victorian Britain. ...

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pretty horrifying the kinds of things that manufacturers will put into their products and sell to the public. There's some sick humor in the case of the baker who was adulterating his products by using plaster of paris instead of flour, and ended up poisoning his customers because the plaster of paris had been adulterated with arsenic (it was really cheap).

Glad that Strong Poison got a shout-out! /LordPeterWimseyFan

[Carley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable and engaging read! Whorton provides a good contextual background history as to the uses of arsenic pre-nineteenth century, when poisoning became the crime of the century. The book is filled with so much detail, and I particularly like the way Whorton uses real-life case studies and recounts grisly murders to support his historical research. I would definitely recommend.

[Pancha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of information on all the many ways arsenic got into people, including accidents that could be mistaken as murder and visa versa. Also detailed descriptions of symptoms. Would be an excellent resource for a writing setting a book in this era, especially if poison was involved. Also a good compliment to Swindled by Bee Wilson.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

The symptoms of arsenic poisoning, which are covered in excruciating detail, remind me way too much of when I was having chemotherapy. This is not a book to read at the table.

As a matter of fact, arsenic actually is the chemotherapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia.

[Dave Cutler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that’s some capitalism there.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A divergence from my currently on-the-read books for a thorough researched but highly readable foray into Victorian Britain and the ubiquitous presence of the highly poisonous arsenic in everyday life from use as rat poison, in skin beauty treatments, in the making of wallpaper, artificial flowers, as farming aid, arsenic (along with other highly toxic poisons) was everywhere. Whether accidental or rightly homicidal, arsenic use was ubiquitous, along with every other toxic substance imaginable in the newly developing Victorian industrial society. The author finishes by up asking (rather rhetorically) what is it that we use in everyday life which future generations will read about with the same sort of circus freak shock horror that we read about in Victorian. And the answer to that highly rhetorical questions is plenty and the same sort of debates that ranged then are raging now. A strong 3.5 stars for this highly reseached and substantiated without becoming only academic account.

[Maybelle Wallis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating catalogue of the many uses of this poisonous metalloid. Arsenic was present in harmful levels in fashionable green dyes used in clothing and wallpaper, in preservatives and embalming fluid, and even in some medicines, skin lotions and inhalations.
Today we might think it absurd to use arsenic for medical purposes but in the 19th century a wide range of metal compounds were in use. Even nowadays if you check the label of your ‘A to Z’ multivitamins you will spot the non-toxic ones. I own a Pharmacopoeia dating from 1826 in which the ‘Metallica’ (metals) section runs to 22 pages and, as well as arsenic, lists preparations of silver, copper, bismuth, mercury, lead, antimony, and zinc.

[mica · Rating 5 out of 5]

CN - spousal and familial murder, historic animal abuse (experimentation)

I thought this book was excellent. Whorton relates a great deal of academic research in relatively accessible language, all the while relating the issues of arsenic in the Victorian century to relevant issues today, both in term of accidental poisoning (as in wells in Bangladesh today) and in terms of marketplace poisoning (as we discover new synthetic materials that may or may not affect our health, or, as lobbyists from certain commercial concerns argue over what is an acceptable risk).

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book about the uses of arsenic throughout the Victorian era. I work at a living museum where we often tell these stories, so it was fascinating to read more in depth about the poison - and discover new pieces of history too!

Most of it was concise and really interesting, but there were places where it got a little wordy and lost my interest a little. These were often the stories about particular people, which became confusing with various names etc. But apart from that, this was a very good read!

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This definitely took me a long time to read, more on me than the book. Overall i found this to bean engaging non-fiction and i learned a lot interesting facts. Most importantly, esp in this time and place, some things never change.
I really enjoyed the scope of this book and the acknowledgment that the scope was limited in time and location, because it still was packed with information and connection to our modern world.

It was however, a little long in my opinion. I was ready to be down about 75pages before the end.

[Amber R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I went into it hoping it was a breakdown of murders that occurred during the Regency and Victorian Era due to arsenic poisoning. Unfortunately, there was far more discussion of the expulsion of bodily fluids and the chemistry behind arsenic. For someone who is sensitive to the word vomit it's not a pleasant read. There really should be some sort of warning on the cover that this word is used frequently.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers in great detail the use of one of the world's most well known poisons. It could be said that it covers the area with a degree of repitition as many points are laboured several times over before the author moves on. That being said, I will never view the colour green again without thinking of arsenic.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

After finishing reading this book I just wonder how anyone could have survived the Victorian era. Full of poisons, used frequently for more and less legitimate purposes, the doctors and forensic experts had to catch up really quickly with unscrupulous food manufacturers and poisoners.

[Pip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off interesting, but became quite repetitive.

[Miriam Rauch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Educational, disturbing, but somewhat dry... Reads like a particularly entertaining doctoral thesis

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a chemist, this book was very interesting. How much food and drink was tainted with arsenic. OMG!

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read that manages to be both well researched and well written, as well as being very accessible.