Curiosities of Civilization

by Andrew Wynter

The silvering of mirrors and looking-glasses still remains a dangerous operation; but there can be no doubt that with properly-constructed flues the floating metal would be entirely conducted away. Indeed, it is by the chimney that much of the metal now escapes; for Thakrah tells us that he has been informed by a manufacturer that from the sweepings of the chimney on one occasion he had collected twenty pounds of good quicksilver. Another, and a very manageable expedient, sometimes resorted to by those exposed to the fumes and the oxide of mercury, is to cover the mouth with a tube-like proboscis, which hangs out of the way of the floating metal, and thus conducts pure air to the operator.

Thakrah tells us that workers in brass also suffer from the inhalation of the volatilized metal. The brass-melters of Birmingham suffer from intermittent fever, which they call the brass ague. This malady leaves them in a state of great debility. The filers of brass, on the same authority, are subject to a most peculiar affection, like Tittlebat Titmouse, their hair turning a vivid green. It is supposed that the copper in the brass-dust combines with the oil of the hair, and thus an oxide of copper is formed. Coppersmiths are, of course, similarly affected. Plumbers, whilst casting, are subject to the volatilized oxide of lead, which in time produces paralysis; and while they are soldering, many deleterious fumes arise, of a sweetish taste, and of a highly astringent nature, which often produces violent attacks of constipation.

But poisonous metals may attack the mucous membrane in the shape of finely-divided powder used in the arts. There is an exceedingly beautiful paper, of an apple-green colour, which is often selected for the coolness and cheerfulness of its appearance. The writer was himself once deluded by the seductive appearance of a paper of this description, and had his library furnished with it. Strange to say, a violent cold seemed to seize every one, even in the midst of summer, who stopped long in this apartment, especially if they came much in contact with the walls. On questioning the paper-hanger the mystery was speedily explained. “I never hang that kind of paper,” he said, “without getting a bad sore throat and a running of the eyes. All the trade knows it is good for a cold to have any dealings with it.” The cheerful green of the paper is nothing less deadly than the aceto-arsenite of copper, an irritant poison of the first class. The flock part of the paper contains a large quantity of pigment in the form of dust, which is of course liable to be detached from the walls on very slight occasions. It has been erroneously supposed that the metal must be volatilized by heat ere it can be separated from the paper; but the action of detachment is mechanical, and not chemical; the poisonous dust either falls or is brushed off the wall, and becomes mixed with the ordinary dust of the room; the lifting of a book, or the displacement of a pile of papers, proves sufficient to set these particles in motion, and to bring them in contact with the mucous linings of the eyes, nose, and throat; hence the violent irritation produced, which similates so closely the effects of a bad cold in the head. Professor Taylor, the celebrated medical toxocologist, has moreover proved the presence of arsenic in the dust fallen from this kind of paper. In a letter to the Medical Times and Gazette, of January 1st, 1859, he says,—

“I procured from the shop of Messrs. Marratt and Short, opticians, 68, King William Street, London Bridge, a quantity of dust for the purpose of analysis. The walls of this shop are covered with an unglazed arsenical paper, and, as I am informed, they have been so covered for a period of about three years. In collecting this dust from the tops of the cases containing the instruments, great care was taken not to touch the walls. The quantity thus collected for examination amounted to about 450 grains. It was nearly black, and, under the microscope, appeared to consist of fibres of sooty particles. It was very light and flocculent. One hundred and fifty grains of the dust were examined by Reinsch’s process, and enough metallic arsenic was obtained from it to coat about ten square inches of copper foil, in addition to a piece of copper gauze. From the latter deposit, by the application of heat, octahedral crystals of arsenic were readily obtained. The case had not been dusted for a period of nine months. Even the dust of instruments locked up in the cases, which were lined at the back only with the green paper, was found to be charged with this poisonous pigment. Half a grain of the dust sufficed to cover pretty thickly with metallic arsenic a square inch of copper gauze. These facts,” says Professor Taylor, “lead to the inevitable inference that the air of a room, of which the walls are covered with an unglazed arsenical green paper, is liable to be charged with the fine dust of the poisonous aceto-arsenite of copper. Those who inhabit these rooms are exposed to breathe the dust. The poison may thus find its way by the pulmonary membrane into the system, or it may affect the eyes, nose, and throat by local action.”

After this unimpeachable testimony to the poisonous character of the pigment in this paper, it is not difficult to understand that the workmen employed in its manufacture are particularly liable to attacks of illness which exhibit all the symptoms of acute influenza; or that the paper-hangers, in putting it up, are sometimes obliged to leave work for a time, in order to get rid of the distressing symptoms to which its manipulation gives rise.

There is in Sheffield an occupation connected with tool-making which forms, as it were, a connecting link between the diseases produced by working in steel and those which flow from working in lead: we allude to file-making. Unfortunately, the various preparations of lead enter very largely into the arts and manufactures of this country; and as its action upon the human body is very great, its pernicious influence is felt in a vast number of occupations of a diverse nature. Thus, white-lead manufacturers, sheet-lead rollers, painters, plumbers, potters, china manufacturers, colour-grinders, glaziers, enamellers of cards, lead-miners, and shot-makers, all come under the saturnine influence; even the poor lacemakers of Belgium do not escape, for the manufacturer, in order to make the fibre look white, requires them to dust it with white-lead powder, and possibly, by this means, it may find its way into the fair skin of a duchess!

It may seem strange that a worker in steel should suffer from the poison of lead, but it occurs in this manner:—The file-maker, in order to hold the file securely, and, at the same time, to protect the fine edge of the sharp chisel with which he cuts the face of the file, places it upon a bed of lead which rests upon an anvil. In cutting the larger three-square files, the workman uses as much as a pound of lead a week; this is detached from the mass by friction and the use of the chisel, in the form of a fine black powder. It is curious that the first portion of the file-cutter’s anatomy that is affected is the finger that rests upon the lead; at first it feels numb, and then becomes paralyzed. If the artisan will not take warning by this fastidious touch of a digit, before long the poison grips him by the wrist, and then some fine morning he wakes and finds that he has what is termed in the trade “a dropped hand;”[53] that is, the extensor muscles of the wrist are paralyzed, and the hand falls helplessly forward, like the fore-paw of a kangaroo. Here the specific action of the poison has exerted itself through the skin of the part affected. The same thing is observable in painters, who are more subject to lead-paralysis than perhaps any other workers in lead. The finger which first touches the brush first suffers; and the potter, who has in the course of his trade to dip his ware in a preparation of lead and flints in order to form the glaze, is in like manner, but still more severely, afflicted. It is well ascertained, however, that the constitutional effects which show themselves in obstinate constipation and cholic, arise from the reception of the lead directly into the mouth, either in the shape of finely-divided particles, or floating in the air, or direct from the fingers to the manipulators: thus, painters will eat their food with fingers soiled with the brush. The mere exhalations of paint are sufficient to paralyze some constitutions very speedily; a single night spent in a newly-painted house is sufficient to produce cholic, especially in young children. And Dr. Watson, in his “Practice of Physic,” relates a case in which a person suffered from dropped hands who had, she said, no concern with lead in any way: on cross-examining her, however, it at last came out that her sons “had in the preceding summer occupied their leisure time with making birdcages and painting them green in the one room in which she habitually lived.” The dippers, as they are termed in the potteries, are perhaps subjected to more frightful effects from lead-poisoning than any other workmen: in addition to paralysis and cholic, the subtle poison sometimes creeps into the brain, mania comes on, and they die raving mad. The grinding and packing of white lead is so destructive, that the men can work at the occupation for a few hours in the day only; the dust that is given off penetrates the clothes, and covers the skin to such an extent that these artisans, after taking a medicated bath of sulphuret of potassium in water, come out like blackamoors.

In these works rats and mice are speedily poisoned by the fine white-lead dust, which penetrates even to their holes. The artisan who handles lead in its various combinations may, however, vastly mitigate his trouble by adopting perfect cleanliness. Before every meal he should wash his hands thoroughly, and after work he should change his clothes. Medical science has given him the means of being forewarned that lead is entering his system by a particular and rarely-failing diagnostic sign: where the metal has entered the system a blue line will be discovered near the edge of the gums; when this blue Peter is hoisted he may know that danger is at hand, and that, unless he is more careful, his bread-earning hand will speedily drop powerless by his side. In all cases, however, prevention is better than cure; and we are glad to learn that almost perfect exemption from painter’s cholic and paralysis has been secured in some extensive painting establishments, by causing artisans to drink a lemonade made by adding a drop of sulphuric acid to a gallon of water. The sulphuric acid is supposed to form, with the lead received into the mouth and stomach, a sulphuret of that metal, which is insoluble, and, therefore, cannot be taken up by the absorbents into the system.

There are many important classes of workers whose sufferings have nothing either curious or dramatic about them, who nevertheless furnish the largest contingent to the army of death. At the head of these dismal companies march tailors, bakers, and milliners of large cities and towns. These three classes supply more victims to what has been erroneously termed “the English death,” or consumption, than any other. Yet there can be no doubt that there is but one condition wanting to render these employments comparatively speaking healthy, and that one want is pure air. Dr. Arnot makes the monkeys in the Zoological Garden teach us a lesson in this particular which should not be lost upon us. In his evidence before the Health Commission he says:—

“A new house was built to receive the monkeys, and no expense was spared which, in the opinion of those intrusted with the management, could ensure to those natives of a warm climate all attainable comfort and safety. Unhappily, however, it was believed that the object would be best secured by making the new room nearly what an English gentleman’s drawing-room is. For warming it, two ordinary drawing-room grates were put in as close to the floor as possible, and with low chimney openings, that the heated air in the room should not escape by the chimneys, while the windows and other openings in the walls above were made as close as possible. Some additional warm air was admitted through the openings in the floor, from hot-water pipes placed beneath it. For ventilation in cold weather, openings were made in the skirting of the room below the floor, with the erroneous idea that the carbonic acid produced in the respiration of these animals, because heavier than the other air in the room, would separate from this and escape below. When all this was done, about sixty healthy monkeys, many of which had already borne several winters in England, were put into the room. A month afterwards more than fifty of them were dead, and the few remaining ones were dying. This room, only open below, was as truly an extinguisher to the living monkeys as an inverted coffee cup held over and around the flame of a candle is an extinguisher of the candle. Not only the warmth of the fires and the warm air that was allowed to enter by the openings in the floor, but the hot breath and all the impure exhalations from the bodies of the monkeys ascended, first to the upper part of the room to be completely incorporated with the atmosphere there, and by no possibility could escape except as a part of that impure atmosphere, gradually passing away by the chimneys and openings in the skirting. Therefore, from the time the monkeys went into the room until they died, they could not have had a single breath of fresh air.”