This article first come out in Issue 5 of our free digital magazineCURIOUS .
Watch out , old book partisan – your collection might be poisoned . embark on with just one suspicious fleeceable tome that turned out to arrest arsenic , theWinterthur Poison Book Projecthas so far discover a further 101 arsenic - tainted record book out in the world , with more probably lurking undetected .
The culprit is a pigment calledemerald green , aka copper acetoarsenite , used to color cloth script bindings . Discovered in 1808 and first manufactured as a pigment in 1814 , the toxic chemical compound has also been historically used as an insecticide .
Emerald greenboomed in popularityin Britain and America in the 1850s . Indeed , many of the books in the database are from library across the US , with one discover in a library in Leeds , England . The team even bought one in a local used bookshop for $ 15 .
“ These bindings are very rough-cut in libraries and private collections , ” said Dr Melissa Tedone , Conservator and Lab Head for Library Materials Conservation at Winterthur Museum , Garden , & Library , in astatement .
Tedone ’s interest was first piqued byRustic Adornments for Homes and Taste , a unripe book write in 1857 with a “ black , waxy excretion on the surface ” and colorant that was “ flake off really easily , ” she toldNational Geographic . Further analysis of the paint by Dr Rosie Grayburn , using X - ray fluorescence and Raman spectrometry , reveal that it did indeed contain arsenic .
Those most at jeopardy from these books are people that work with them , such as librarians and researchers , so the labor advises wearing nitrile gloves to handle book with emerald green pigment and wiping down any control surface they are on with a disposable fabric , as they can exuviate tiny amounts of As .
Arsenic poisoningis serious , and in some cases deadly . Short - term symptoms let in sickness , diarrhea , and asleep and tingle extremity . recollective - condition symptom admit cutis wound and an increase risk of various cancers .
So , anyone with a known involvement in quondam playscript , if you find a dusty emerald green tome tuck away , approach with circumspection , and anyone indue one , forked check your bestower ’s intention before accepting .
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