Arsenic
A poison in a small dose is a medicine, and a medicine in a large dose is a poison. — Alfred Swaine Taylor, 19th-Century toxicologist.
I was alarmed discover that Allenheads Contemporary Arts had a substantial amount of rat poison - two giant tubs, looming on a shelf, almost as if they were hoarding it for a rat invasion, or perhaps for something more sinister. On closer inspection, they don’t actually contain any arsenic compounds, though some of their contents are noted elsewhere.
After being unable to procure arsenic from rat poison vendors at car-boot sales, or from the Allenheads bio-weapons stockpile, I discovered that it had been sitting there right under my nose all along. The laptop that I’m using to write this contains arsenic, which is, Apple informs me used as an ‘industry standard material in liquid crystal displays (LCDs), and is added to prevent the formation of defects in the glass.’ The company points out that they’re removing the use of arsenic for this purpose from their computers by 2008. I have now made my first arsenic purchase in the form of an old Apple laptop safe in the knowledge that it contains plenty of arsenic.
Sat, more or less safely in front of my computer, I began to find out what else it’s still used in. A (green LED) light went on in my head, (or rather near my head, as LED’s used in digital devices also contain arsenic), and ever since then, arsenic seems to just keep popping out of the woodwork.
There’s nothing quite like a bonfire is there? People regularly heap large amounts of arsenic onto fires in the form of old wood that has been treated with CCA – (chromated copper arsenate) which was prevalent for most of the latter half of the 20th century as a building material, particularly for outdoor use, including in children’s playgrounds.
In the UK, its use in this way has been banned since 2002. There’s some concern over landfill disposal of wood in this way and its implications for the environment, and the protocols for safe disposal are at best patchy. Of course, CCA isn’t even necessary as a wood treatment, – there are safer alternatives – but since huge quantities are used in gold-mining ore extraction, (and in the past in places such as Allenheads as a by-product of lead mining) it ensures that there are large amounts available cheap from mining industry, which, rather than investing large amounts of money in its safe disposal, prefer to sell it to people for use around their own homes.
Still, if you’re feeling ill from the fumes, you could maybe knock back some Vichy water as a restorative, or seek out some of Dr Fowler’s solution, which in the 18th century was a popularly prescribed cure-all.
My first encounter with arsenic that I can remember was after seeing the 1944 Frank Capra film ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ in which a drama critic (Mortimer Bruster, played by Cary Grant) learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are homicidal maniacs who use elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, strychnine, and "just a pinch of cyanide” to poison their gentleman friends. A highly recommended tonic, which I haven’t yet been able to find on sale at any car-boot sales I’ve visited.
It’s not just Mortimer Bruster’s maiden aunts who have used arsenic to dispatch of troublesome friends. History is littered with cases. One of the earliest documented cases of arsenic poisoning was Nero's poisoning of Britannicus to secure the Roman throne in 55 A.D.
The Borgia family were also said to be infamous poisoners during the Italian Renaissance, using arsenic in wine to dispatch powerful rivals during banquets.
Arsenic was also at one point deemed to have dispatched another famous historical figure, Napoleon Bonaparte. Though this had been thought to have been at the hands of a poisoner, it may be the case that he was in fact poisoned by his own choice of wallpaper, which contained ‘Scheele's Green’ made from arsenic and also used as a colourant for a time in sweets.
In the 1650’s, the Catholic church got wind of the practice of unhappy marriages ending abruptly when young widows sought to absolve themselves of sin at the confessional. They were in a prime position to rid themselves of unwanted husbands as they were able to slowly administer the poison when serving food. An abundance of these young widows seemed to point to further evidence that something was afoot, and the Pope was informed that what amounted to arsenic clubs had begun to flourish around this time.
On the subject of arsenic and Popes. Pope Julius II (who pope’d between1503 and1513, before the practice had really got going) is well known mostly for commissioning Michaelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Slightly less well known is the fact that he bribed his way into the papacy, fathered at least three illegitimate daughters and had syphilis. He was, alas, born too soon to have been one of the people to have benefited from arsenics restorative powers for his condition.
In 1909, after 606 attempts to find a cure for syphilis using arsenic that would be toxic to syphilis spirochaete without being toxic to humans, Paul Eherlich discovered what he had been looking for in the form of asphernamine and it was named Salvarsan.
It is also rumoured that Henry VIII was another possible syphilitic sufferer, and that Anne Boleyn, one of his later-to-be-beheaded wives was also thought to have used arsenic in several unsuccessful attempts to poison him. In what perhaps could have been a cruel twist of fate, she may have accidentally given him the right doses and compound to stave off his (and hence secure her own) demise.
Penicillin eventually replaced Salvarsan as a favoured treatment, but arsenic goes from strength to strength as a medical treatment in the form of arsenic trioxide. It is used on patients who suffer a relapse after initial treatment for a rare type of leukaemia, and, Iranian scientists who have been running trials using the compound, feel that it should be considered as a first-line treatment for patients with acute promyeloctytic leukaemia (APL) instead of putting them through chemotherapy, as well as for other cancers which affect bone marrow.