Translated from: diariosanacronicos.com/blog/o-preco-da-elegancia-intoxicacoes-por-arsenico-no-seculo-xix/
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Recently, the Bata Shoe Museum opened the exhibition "Fashion Victims: The Pleasures and Perils of Dress in the 19th Century". Beside addressing the highly important issue of the conditions of work that employees of the fashion industry were subjected , the exhibition brought light to information about the use oftoxicagents, specially for the fixation of textiles dyes, on that period.
Until 1799, when Charles Tennant invented the bleach powder, white fabrics were obtained by the use of aged urine and used mainly for underwear. Despite theromanticismaround the figure of thelaundress in this XVIII century painting, there was nothing pretty in their craft.
The XIX century already starts with a valuable innovation in terms of textile technology. Thanks to the researches of Charles Tennant, who developed the bleach powder based on chlroine, it was possible to produce fabrics in what we call today off-white. Before this, the techniques of bleaching included the use of aged urine, in which the clothes were boiled and afterwards put to dry under the sun for hours. When we think about the Regency period (and in all of the movies based on Jane Austen's books) it's inevitable to remember the delicate white muslin dresses - that were accessible only a small part of the population. Both the technique of bleaching with chlorine as the traditional with urine involved complex chemical reactions with dangerous compounds, that directly affected the health of those involved in its washing and production. Blindness and chemical burns to the respiratory tract were some of the health problems faced by the workers of the white fabric industry in that period. But white was not even remotely the most dangeours tone to produce or wear.
DEATH IS GREEN AND NOT BECAUSE OF ABSINTHE
In 1775, the Swiss pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele create a green pigment of high fixation, da upuntil the end of the XVIII century would replace all of the others. Its innovative formulation, however, hid a direct health risk, for the pigment's vibrant aspect and durability came from the combination of arsenic and copper sulfate. Due to its composition, the so-called "Scheele Green" tended to darken over time, which didn't stopped the spread of the dye in art, decor and clothing.
The Scheele Green was widely used in wallpapers, curtains, candles, cushions, artificial flowers, clothes and even as a food coloring. Among the workers who produced these pieces, and also between artists, arsenic poisonings were common and involved symptoms as dizziness (some researchers defend that the iconic figure of the fainting Victorian lady could have been originated of fainting caused by arsenic in wallpapers), loss of appetite, nausea, diarrhea, headache, irritability, convulsions and coma. The contact with arsenic is also linked to the development of malignant tumors and burns in the airways.
The arsenic wasabsorbedin three ways: throughinhalation(of candles or from wallpaper's dust), oral ingestion (in the case ofpaintersthat licked the brush's tip or children that, in 1850, died after eating candies dyed green) or through the skin. This direct contact with the skin was more common among the women, due to the sensation that the tones emerald-green caused in XIX century Europe. Taking in consideration that in 1860 there were already several publications denouncing the evils of green dyes, and other researchers continually tried to modify the original formula to make it less deadly, it is quite possible that people knew what awaited them when they decorated their mansion with green wallpaper. Still, these color's tones were so popular that ended up appearing even in satirical cartoons in the 1860s:
"The Arsenic Waltz". Punch Maganize, 1860s.
The first modification to the original Scheele's formula was done in 1814, by two German pharmacists, who renamed their pigment as "emerald green". Cheaper than the Scheele Green, it soon integrated the English textile industry and began to be used indiscriminately in the dyeing of cotton. Moreover, it was also used in the production of glass and crystal (including those of domestic use, creating another way of poisoning), in the dyeing of leather, manufacture of soap, toy's painting, to color fireworks and even in the formula of poisons against rats.
Wallpaper from the half of the XIX century, dyed with Emerald Green.
Collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Dress from 1860-1865 in emerald green. The possession of such assets require that the museum take special care in the storage and handling, to ensure the safety of employees.
The emerald green was also known as "Paris green" or "Vienna green" and its toxicity was only truly exposed in 1822, with the publication of its recipe. Amazingly, the use of this pigment was only definitively prohibited in the 1960s.
Afternoon dress from the 1860s, dyed with an arsenic based pigment.
Collection of the FIT Museum.
Depiste of known toxicity of the green tones based on arsenic, these colors would only fall into disuse in decor from 1891, when Queen Victoria herself, warned by a foreign dignitary, had all of the green wallpaper in the Buckingham Palace to be removed, which was followed by her subjects.
Wallpaper form the collection of William Morris, c. 1840.
FUN FACT
The height concentrations of arsenic detected in the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte can be attributed to the fact that his residence in exile had several rooms with green wallpaper.
SOURCES:
http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com.br/2010/06/deadly-shade-of-green.html
http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/emerald-green-or-paris-green-the-deadly-regency-paint/
http://thepragmaticcostumer.wordpress.com/2014/06/11/drop-dead-gorgeous-a-tldr-tale-of-arsenic-in-victorian-life/
http://journals.ed.ac.uk/resmedica/article/viewFile/182/799
http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/conservation/reports/six_layer_sofa.pdf
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updated by @leopoldina: 06 Oct 2016 06:29:53AM
