Poisons in domestic fabrics in relation to trade and art : a paper read before the Society, 21st January, 1880, John Simon ... in the chair : being a sequel to the pamphlet, Our domestic poisons, from the sanitary point of view / by Henry Carr.
- Henry Carr
- Date:
- [1880]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Poisons in domestic fabrics in relation to trade and art : a paper read before the Society, 21st January, 1880, John Simon ... in the chair : being a sequel to the pamphlet, Our domestic poisons, from the sanitary point of view / by Henry Carr. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![from the deleterious effects produced by that same air escaping in small quantities into the house. As before stated, it is said that workpeople con- tinually exposed to arsenic, in greit quantities, do not suffer. It is perfectly clear that great numbers can endure exposure to these arsenical wor]ES with impunity, but how many break down, and how many die under the ordeal, it is impossible to ascertain. No such investigation would be at all reliable unless carried out under Government authority, such as that made by Dr. Guy with regard to a manufactory of artificial leaves. (See Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1862.) The following is taken from Dr. Guy’s report above mentioned:— “In an establishment employing about one hundred young women, more or less suffering was almost universal amongst them; the symptoms were erythema, ulceration, excessive thirst, nausea, vomiting, fever, convulsions, &c.” In commenting on this report, and with par- ticular reference to one case of extreme suffering described by Dr. Guy, Mr. Simon says :— ‘ ‘ The tortures which that poor girl must have endured will not have been in vain, if, as may be hoped, the public knowledge of them leads to the amendment of a system under which others are still day by day enduring in different proportions the progress of a similar fate.” Had Dr. Guy’s investigation been carried into- other works where arsenic is employed, further important information would no doubt have beem elicited. It is, of course, only under peculiar circumstances, that instances of suffering in manufactories can be reached, and, for the purposes of this paper, any attempt at investigation would have been useless, but the cases of two men, accidentally brought under the notice of the writer, may be mentioned, whose hands and various parts of the body were covered with scars of ulceration produced by](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22358675_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
