Every precaution possible is adopted to reduce danger, but with certain winds gases escape in puffs from the furnace doors, which the men designate “smeeches,” and these contain arsenic in a vaporised form, which has an extremely irritating effect on the bronchial tubes.
One great protection against arsenical sores is soap and water. Arsenic dust has a tendency to produce sore places about the mouth, the ankles, and the wrists. Moreover, if it be allowed to settle in any of the folds of the flesh it produces a nasty raw. On leaving their work the men are required to bathe and completely cleanse themselves from every particle of the poison that may adhere to them.
As touching inadvertent arsenical poisoning, I will mention a circumstance that may be of use to some of my readers.
When living in the East of England I found my children troubled with obstinate sores, chiefly about the joints. They would not heal. I sent for the local doctor, and he tinkered at them, but instead of mending, the wounds got worse. This went on for many weeks. Suddenly an idea struck me. I had papered some of my rooms with highly æsthetic wall coverings by a certain well-known artist-poet who had a business in wall-papers. I passed my hand over the wall, and found that the colouring matter came off on my hand. At once I drove into the nearest town and submitted the paper to an analyst. He told me that it was charged with sulphuret of arsenic, common orpiment, and that as the glue employed for holding the paint had lost all power, this arsenical dust floated freely in the air. I at once sent my children away, and they had not been from home a week before they began to recover. Of course, all the wall-papers were removed.
ARSENIC WORKS
About a month later I was in Freiburg, in Baden, and immediately on my arrival called on an old friend, and asked how he and all his were.
“Only fairly well,” he replied. “We are all—the young people especially—suffering from sores. Whether it is the food——”
“Or,” said I, interrupting him, “the paper.”