The arsenic century : how Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work, and play

Resource Information

The work The arsenic century : how Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work, and play represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Missouri University of Science & Technology Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The arsenic century : how Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work, and play

Title remainder

how Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work, and play

Statement of responsibility

James C. Whorton

Creator

• Whorton, James C., 1942-

Subject

• Arsenic -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Arsenic -- Toxicology -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• Arsenic -- toxicity
• Arsenic -- Side effects -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century
• History, 19th Century
• United Kingdom
• Arsenic Poisoning -- history

Language

eng

Summary

"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."--BOOK JACKET

Cataloging source

UKM

Dewey number

669.75094109034

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

RA1231.A7

LC item number

W46 2010

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

NLM call number

• 2010 H-544
• QV 294

NLM item number

W628a 2010