Chapter 11
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE WAS ONE of Britain’s most feared and hated enemies. When he was eventually captured, it was clear that no simple prison could hold the great military leader. Instead he was exiled to the remote island of St Helena. And there, in 1821, he was killed. Not by his guards, or by an avenging British military, but by his wallpaper.
Arsenic again
Arsenic is one of the most widely known deadly poisons, yet in the nineteenth century it was an everyday ingredient of many popular domestic products – including dyes, paints, fabrics, wallpapers and flypapers. Only in the 1860s did the medical profession cotton on to the harmful effects of arsenic in domestic products, and it took almost another 100 years for the full impact of arsenic around the home to be realised and start being properly assessed.
The cause of Napoleon’s demise was only formally identified in the late twentieth century when modern analytical techniques were used to identify high levels of arsenic in a hair sample and in the dye used for the green pattern on the wallpaper, which was found to contain an arsenic-based pigment.
But Napoleon’s fate was by no means unique. Accidental arsenic poisoning in the nineteenth century was easily possible. Chemical dyes were the height of fashion and wonderfully bright colours such as Scheele’s Green and Paris Green (both copper arsenates) were used to print wallpaper. With no proper heating, houses were frequently damp and this meant the wallpaper became mouldy. The organisms that caused this mould thrived in these surroundings, living off the plaster, the wallpaper paste (a mix of flour and water) and even the wallpaper itself to help them multiply. In the process, they produced trimethylarsine gas, only in tiny amounts, but when people breathed it in over a period of time, this led to chronic arsenic poisoning.
As late as 1912, a report in the British Medical Journal mentioned the use of arsenic in a carpet dye, which had caused a poisoning in Germany. Although by then such use was illegal, carpets containing these dyes would remain on many a floor, perhaps for decades. Patients complained of chronic diarrhoea, which stopped when they left their home, only to come back when they returned. Again, these cases of arsenic poisoning were probably caused by the gas produced by mould growth in the carpet, as had happened with the wallpaper. It was not until the 1930s that the mould theory was finally proved to be the correct explanation.
Because wall coverings and carpets often stayed in place for so long, such problems could lie dormant for years. In the 1950s, Clare Booth Luce, the American Ambassador in Rome, was diagnosed with chronic arsenical poisoning. Thinking this might be an evil plot by communist agents, the CIA investigated. After much careful searching, eventually the cause was found – arsenic dust from the flaking paint of her bedroom ceiling in the United States Embassy. This dust had been falling over her clothing, the furniture and her food for several years. And in the room above, the CIA found the culprit: a washing machine. Its vibrations had caused the release of the poisonous paint and dust.
Even though arsenic’s use around the home was limited at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was still commonly found in other products. Many liquid weedkillers at that time contained high arsenic content. Some manufacturers added a dye to colour the weedkiller as a safety measure, but there was no legal requirement to do so. Many wood preservatives also contained the poisonous sodium arsenite, but these could not be coloured as the dye would then have stained the wood being treated.
Hammond’s Vermin Remedy, available in the early years of the twentieth century, was regarded as a poison because of the large quantity of arsenic it contained. Purchasers could only obtain this particular product from pharmacies, where all sales were strictly recorded.
One of the most notorious uses of arsenic was in flypaper. A number of murders were committed using arsenic extracted from flypaper. It was so very easy to do – by simply soaking the flypaper in water, the arsenic dissolved into the liquid. Such was the concern after the Seddon case in 1912 (described in more detail in Chapter 2) that the law was eventually changed. All flypapers containing arsenic were brought within the Poisons Rules, but not until 26th February, 1925.
As recently as the 1970s, there was a report of 11 cases of arsenic poisoning from drinking well water in America. The water was contaminated by grasshopper bait, which had been buried in the soil near the well. The arsenic in the bait dissolved in the groundwater and then seeped into the well. Even today, millions of people in the Third World are suffering from arsenic poisoning, as a result of contaminated drinking water, as mentioned in the previous chapter.
Lead or dead?
Lead is another major culprit in accidental poisoning. Although serious lead poisoning is now rare in the UK there is still a lot of lead around the home. Since Roman times, lead has been used for water pipes, because it is so soft and easily worked, even at room temperature. In the past, water from peaty areas of the UK, which is acidic, dissolved the lead in water pipes and storage tanks and caused frequent cases of lead poisoning. When this problem was identified, householders were told to run the tap for several minutes before using any water for drinking or cooking. This was so water that had been lying in the pipes for a while would be flushed away, as it would have a much higher lead content. This acidic water needed to be treated with lime at the waterworks to harden it, as hard water didn’t dissolve the lead.
Even today, where copper piping is present, hot tap water should never be used for food preparation or drinking. This is because the hot water can dissolve some of the lead from the solder that joins the copper pipes together throughout the system. It is some years since the use of lead solder was abandoned in modern central heating and plumbing systems. However, lead solder is still common in many older homes.
Metallic lead is not usually a hazard, although in the past children have been poisoned by swallowing lead shot, or even fishing or curtain weights, which also used to be made of lead. Recently a children’s comic was prosecuted by trading standards because yellow pencils given away free with the magazine contained three times the permitted level of lead in the paint on them.
Paints and varnishes used to contain a lot of lead, but EU legislation now requires that lead paints must carry a warning: paint with only one per cent lead has to carry a hazard warning and such is the danger that even those paints containing as little as half a per cent lead must carry the warning ‘Not to be applied on surfaces likely to be sucked or chewed by children’.
Old, flaking paint can contain lead, or may expose previous layers containing high levels. Care must be taken when removing any old paint, which should never be removed by dry sanding, rubbing down or burning off with a blow-lamp as these methods will release lead dust, which could contaminate food and drink or be inhaled. Paint manufacturers have produced safety information booklets about these dangers and the way to treat them. They recommend that a liquid paint stripper be used, followed by wet sanding.
Danger – strippers at work
The downside of liquid paint strippers is that they are very toxic themselves. A substance known as methylene chloride is widely used as an ingredient of liquid and gel paint strippers. Exposure to the fumes produced by these products has caused poisoning, with symptoms such as skin rash, swelling, mental impairment, temporary diabetes, mellitus and even death. It is essential that these products are only used in well-ventilated areas.
In normal circumstances, accidental and even intentional contact with paint strippers can have dire results. One medic reported his own experience after accidental exposure to the substance, listing symptoms including vomiting, nausea, anorexia, lassitude, urinary frequency and mental impairment lasting up to 24 hours.
Hard to swallow
One of the most incredible facts about domestic dangers is the number of poisons that were intended for human consumption. In Victorian times a product called ‘Condy’s Disinfecting Liquid’ was sold in pharmacies. It was ‘flavoured’ with lavender oil to prevent it being drunk by mistake. It also contained potassium permanganate, an oxidising agent. Drinking this liquid would have been highly dangerous, leading to nausea and vomiting, corrosion of the alimentary tract and oedema, with both liver and kidney damage and eventually death, up to a month later. Amazingly, this product was used, well diluted with water, as a gargle for sore throats as well as for bathing wounds.
Other similar products such as Condy’s Red Fluid (containing sodium permanganate) and Condy’s Green Fluid (containing sodium manganate) were widely sold as cheap disinfectants in the early twentieth century.
Potassium chlorate was also used in toothpaste at the start of the twentieth century. It claimed to treat spongy gums and prevent the build-up of tartar. It was also used as a general antiseptic and was included in other dental products, such as mouthwashes and gargles. Kidney and liver damage were a known hazard of overuse. Potassium chlorate will appear yet again in the chapter about the Noxious Nursery.
Stannous fluoride, like sodium fluoride, has been used as an aqueous solution for application to the teeth to prevent decay. Toothpastes containing stannous fluoride are also used, although staining of the teeth can occur.
In 1976, in the USA, a three-year-old child died about three hours after drinking a solution of stannous fluoride, which had been intended only as a mouthwash to allow its application to the child’s teeth. Unfortunately, the child swallowed the solution instead of spitting it out. Within five minutes the child vomited, then developed a convulsive seizure and later went into shock; cardiac and respiratory arrest followed and the unfortunate child died.
Boron the deadly
Boric acid has been used for centuries for medicinal, cosmetic and household purposes. Borax, the sodium salt of boric acid, has been similarly used, and has also been used as an astringent and an emulsifier in creams. If applied to raw and weeping skin there can be sufficient absorption of boric acid to cause boron poisoning. In the UK, the concentration of boric acid was restricted to five per cent in talcum powder and only 0.5 per cent in products for oral hygiene.
These talcum powder products have now been completely banned from use on children under three years old as in the past infants have died of boron poisoning (see the chapter on the Noxious Nursery).
The last prescription product for oral hygiene containing boron was Bocasan, containing sodium perborate. As sachets of powder to be mixed with water for use as a mouthwash, this product carried warnings that it was not to be used for longer than seven days, due to the risk of boron poisoning, and that it was not suitable for those with renal impairment or for children under five. This product too has now been discontinued.
Deaths have also resulted in the past from absorption following the washing out of body cavities with solutions of boric acid. In the UK the use of boric acid in cosmetics and toiletries is now severely restricted.
Descaling products
Formic acid and both its sodium and calcium salts are safely used, in very dilute solutions, as food preservatives. Formic acid was widely used for many years in various industries, including textile dyeing and leather tanning. It has also found a household use in descaling products, removing the build-up of lime scale from domestic kettles. Strong solutions, containing up to 60 per cent formic acid, have been used in some of these products. Chemically, formic acid is similar to acetic acid, but it is far more irritating and pungent.
A number of poisonings have resulted from people drinking descaling products containing formic acid. Such poisoning is usually fatal, but not until several days later. Those who survive are permanently scarred internally, due to the acid’s corrosive effects. Major complications include damage to the throat, oesophagus and stomach. Some survivors sustain so much damage to their mouth, throat and oesophagus that they need an operation to create an opening from the outside directly into the stomach to allow them to be fed through a tube.
Other symptoms of this type of poisoning include problems with breathing, circulation, blood clotting and kidney failure. In 1980, there was a report of three patients who had each swallowed kettle descaler, containing between 40 and 55 per cent formic acid. All three eventually died, although not until between five to 14 days after admission to hospital. Today, descaling products contain citric acid, which is far less harmful.
Unnatural gas
Gas is another domestic killer. Until the arrival of natural gas in the 1970s, all gas supplies in the UK were produced from coal. Gas mantles were used in incandescent lamps, to light the home, before the advent of electricity. Coal gas was used in these lights and also later in ovens and in gas fires.
Coal gas was a mixture of a number of gases, including carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide can also be formed during the incomplete combustion of natural gas and some other fuels. It is highly toxic when inhaled, especially by babies, small children and the elderly. Even today this gas is still a leading cause of death in house fires.
In the past, when coal gas was still in use, many suicides were due to people quite literally ‘putting their head in the oven’. They turned the gas supply on, without lighting the oven, and breathed in the gas, soon afterwards dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. Some such cases appear in Chapter 16.
Gas played a key part in one of the most notorious mass murders of the mid-twentieth century. John Reginald Halliday Christie, born in Yorkshire in 1898 and hanged in 1953, confessed to the murder, by strangulation, of six women including Mrs Evans, the wife of Timothy Evans, who had lived in the same house as Christie.
Evans had been convicted and hanged for the murder of his baby daughter in 1950. Evans had also been charged with the murder of his wife at the same time, but the case never came to court. Following a special inquiry by the Home Office and several debates in Parliament, no definite conclusion was reached. However, the view that Evans was innocent and that Christie had killed both mother and child increasingly came to the fore.
Carbon monoxide was found in the blood of three of Christie’s victims. At his trial, he explained that he got the women partially drunk, then encouraged them to sit in a deck chair with a sun canopy above it. A rubber pipe carried coal gas from the domestic supply to the canopy and made the women unconscious. Christie then strangled and raped them.
Although it isn’t poisonous, natural gas still has the potential to be deadly because of this carbon monoxide risk. Many deaths occur each year, caused by poor maintenance of appliances and lack of ventilation. This can lead to incomplete combustion of the natural methane gas in appliances and central heating boilers, producing deadly carbon monoxide.
Natural gas is both colourless and odourless, which means that it could be dangerously undetectable, so any leakage could lead to an explosion without warning. For this reason, a particularly smelly substance, a chemical called a mercaptan, is added to natural gas to act as a warning. Methyl mercaptan is said to be the world’s smelliest molecule, with the nose able to detect as little as 0.02 micrograms per litre of air.
Dead clean
For many years, toilet cleaning blocks and mothballs have used a substance called naphthalene. Children who swallowed mothballs, thinking they were sweets, developed haemolytic anaemia, in which the red blood cells are destroyed. Fortunately, the children recovered from their ‘mothball anaemia’ after a blood transfusion. There was even a report of blood problems in a newborn baby because of such poisoning. The child’s mother gave in to cravings for the smell of naphthalene when she was 28 weeks pregnant. Some women get the strangest cravings, but shouldn’t always give in: it was found that a dose as low as 2g of naphthalene can be fatal to a small child.
Household bleach, available in a variety of strengths, is sodium hypochlorite solution. If swallowed, bleach reacts with our stomach acid with dire results, releasing fumes of hypochlorous acid and causing irritation and corrosion of the mucous membranes of the mouth, the oesophagus and the stomach with, needless to say, much pain and vomiting. The acid fumes cause coughing and choking, and may also cause severe respiratory tract irritation and even pulmonary oedema.
An 18-year-old swimming pool attendant who added 16 per cent sodium hypochlorite solution to swimming pool water every day found that her fingernails began to drop off after several weeks. They grew back normally when she stopped using the bleach, but the problem returned the following year when she started using it again. Another young girl who had the strange habit of sucking socks which had been bleached suffered episodes of vomiting, abdominal pain and bronchopneumonia over some years. This was eventually traced to her curious habit, although it took a lot of detective work to discover the bizarre cause in this case.
It is vital to remember that different types of cleaning products, such as toilet cleansers and bleaches, should not be mixed or used together, as this can produce poisonous chlorine gas.
Ammonia is yet another chemical that was used for over a century for general cleaning purposes. It should be handled with great care, as exposure to the concentrated ammonia vapour may cause injury to the eyes, and inflammation of the respiratory tract or even spasm of the throat with resultant asphyxia. It should never be mixed with bleach, as this produces chloramine gas, which is also very toxic.
Many cases of poisoning due to exposure to chlorine and chloramine gases have resulted from the accidental mixing of incompatible cleaning fluids.
Always read the label, which lists the active ingredients
and explains the dos and don’ts of that specific product .
More killers in the home
If arsenic is well known as a deadly substance, then cyanide is positively world famous. But did that stop it being used as a household cleaning product? Not a bit. In 1934, the Ministry of Health gave the following advice on a common method of eradicating bedbugs: ‘In ridding a house of bed-bugs, it cannot be too strongly emphasised that fumigation by hydrogen cyanide is a dangerous process and should be undertaken only by responsible persons with full knowledge of the nature and properties of the gas, and who are skilled in the use of gas masks and oxygen breathing apparatus. In order to minimise risk, a lachrymatory gas (which makes your eyes water) may be mixed with the hydrogen cyanide to act as an indicator. Failure to detect the lachrymatory gas, however, can of itself be accepted neither as indicating the absence of hydrogen cyanide nor that ventilation is complete.’ In other words, ‘You have been warned.’
Nitrobenzene was widely used in the manufacture of polishes, perfumes and soaps in times gone by. Nitrobenzene is a highly poisonous volatile liquid and as little as 1g can be fatal. Poisoning can result by drinking the liquid, inhalation of the fumes or absorption through the skin. The toxic effects are usually delayed for several hours and the symptoms include nausea, prostration, burning headache, cyanosis, haemolytic anaemia, vomiting and convulsions, leading to coma and death. Bootblack containing nitrobenzene caused a case of poisoning in 1904, and a further case was reported in 1912, when some nitrobenzene was placed on cotton wool to ease, of all things, an aching tooth.
Phenol, or carbolic acid as granny would have called it, was widely used as a disinfectant in the home, and in hospitals, as soap and a liquid. Bars of carbolic soap were also placed in drawers and cupboards of clothing to prevent moth attacks. But phenol is a highly corrosive substance, especially in its concentrated form, and can cause nasty burns to the skin. Any such burns should be treated by application of glycerol.
In the 1920s, a man suffered extensive burns to his hip, thigh and scrotum after a bottle of phenol broke in his pocket during a train journey. He eventually died of his burns. Some years later a hospital patient died after liquid phenol, which is very concentrated, was applied by mistake, instead of a much weaker diluted solution, as a dressing of an arm wound. And a woman who had regularly used phenol for cleaning purposes, without wearing protective gloves, went to the doctor because her urine had turned lime green. Investigation showed that this strange colouration was caused by a phenol derivative. No doubt she wore gloves after that.
Turpentine was used in Victorian households for many cleaning purposes and as an ingredient of homemade furniture polish. Today it is still used as a thinner in paints and varnishes and as a solvent. In the past, people did not realise that it could be very poisonous. In the 1930s, a man died after drinking about 170ml of turpentine. At the post-mortem the lining of his stomach was found to be in shreds, lying in small pieces in the gastric cavity. The wall of the stomach itself felt like leather. In homes where the floors were regularly cleaned with turpentine, the occupants sometimes developed poisoning by inhalation and absorption through the skin, which resulted in blood abnormalities and petechiae (red/purple flat pinhead spots) all over the body and in the mouth.
Carbon tetrachloride was used as a ‘dry cleaning fluid’ both commercially and in the home for many years. It is only in the last few decades that its poisonous nature, especially to the liver and kidneys, has led to its replacement by less toxic substances. Both the liquid and its vapour are poisonous. Should the vapour come into contact with a flame the highly poisonous phosgene gas is produced.
Half a century ago a little girl, only four years old, who had been seen awake in bed at 9.20 p.m., was found to be in a comatose state beneath the bedclothes when checked on at 11 p.m. There was an empty bottle of ‘Thawpit’ dry cleaning fluid beside her in the bed. The skin of her face was found to be severely blistered, and she died shortly afterwards. The post-mortem showed congestion of the lungs, with kidney, spleen and heart damage plus fatty changes to the liver. The cause of her death was found to be inhalation of the vapour.
Other cases of poisoning at the time included a naval officer who drank some carbon tetrachloride in mistake for gin. He refused to have any medical treatment and subsequently died five days later. Another man, aged 53, drank about 50ml of carbon tetrachloride while under the influence of alcohol. His kidneys were badly damaged as a result and he died some 24 days later. A child of three who swallowed about a thimbleful of carbon tetrachloride fortunately recovered after treatment. Someone had stupidly stored the carbon tetrachloride in an old orange juice bottle, from which the child drank.
Paraffin, also known as kerosene, has long been used as a fuel oil for stoves and lamps, as a solvent in insecticide sprays and as a cleaner and degreaser both in the home and in industry. It was sold in a number of different grades, dependent on the use. Inhaling or drinking it leads to stomach upset, cough, heart problems and depression of the central nervous system. The main problem is the development of ‘kerosene pneumonia’, which comes either from breathing paraffin in or absorbing it through the bloodstream.
Many cases of paraffin poisoning in children have been recorded over the years, such as a 12-year-old boy, whose clothes became soaked in kerosene, and who developed epidermal necrolysis, a severe type of rash where the top layers of skin peel off, leaving large, red raw areas, which are then very susceptible to infection.
It may seem unbelievable today, but in 1915 the British Medical Journal carried a report of the successful treatment of a case of diphtheria, in which kerosene was administered, with the taste masked by the use of sarsaparilla. A dose was given every four hours for three days. At that time, doctors wondered if kerosene would become another useful drug, but fortunately for us all, newer and more effective medicines were developed instead.
Other poisons found in the home included metallic oxalates, used in laundry blue bags and in polishes, and oxalic acid, used to remove ink stains and iron mould, as well as for cleaning leather and removing the colour from calico printing. Salts of lemon, also known as Salt of Sorrel and chemically as potassium tetraoxalate, was used to remove rust and ink spots and also as an ingredient of metal polishes. Modern cleaning products are a great deal safer than those used by our grandparents.
An angel of death
As we have seen, Victorian households contained many hazardous chemicals used as cleaning products, so it’s hardly surprising that some were used for more sinister means. Catherine Wilson was a nurse who befriended sick people with some wealth, and then tried to get them to change their will in her favour. Then she set about feeding them with a variety of poisons. For a while she lived with a Mr Dixon, but he began to drink heavily so she poisoned him too.
In 1862 she was caring for Sarah Carnell, who had already rewritten her will in favour of Catherine. One day the nurse brought her patient ‘a soothing draught’. Mrs Carnell took a mouthful, but immediately spat it out, saying it had burnt her mouth. She called for her husband, who saw that there was a hole burnt in the carpet where the fluid had landed. Nurse Catherine fled but was arrested several days later.
The mixture she had given to Mrs Carnell contained enough sulphuric acid to kill as many as 50 people. She was charged with attempted murder, but was cleared as her defence had been that the pharmacist had given her the wrong bottle. No one could be sure, so the charge was dropped. On her release, however, she was promptly re-arrested. Word about this case had spread and resulted in post-mortems being carried out on some of her other patients. Seven bodies were exhumed and a variety of poisons found in them. So Nurse Catherine was tried yet again and this time was found guilty. She was hanged outside the Old Bailey in October 1862, and it is said that some 20,000 people attended to watch.
And finally ...
The unfortunate tale of Sidney Smith, a British clergyman who became the Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He was a renowned essayist and wit of his day. He died in 1845 after mistakenly drinking some ink. When his wife told him what he had done, his last words were claimed to be, ‘Bring me all the blotting paper in the house’.