CORPSE CANDLES - Poison in Victorian Britain.

"An abominable smell like garlic."

            So far in this series we've discovered that poison surrounded the Victorians: in their food, medicines…and even in the candles that lit their homes!

            This week our story starts on a summer's evening in 1837 when Mr. Everitt, preparing to retire for the night, blew out his candle. Mr Everitt, who just happened to be a professor of chemistry, became alarmed by the scent of garlic - which he knew to be  the characteristic smell given off by heated arsenic. The next day Everitt went to his laboratory where he determined that the smouldering candle did indeed give off arsenical vapours.

            Everitt's candle was one of a variety of 'composition candles', newly available on the British market. These candles had the advantage of burning like high quality wax (as opposed to tallow) but at a fraction of the price. What's even more interesting is that these candles originated from France - where they were banned!

            In 1810 the French scientist, Michel Chevreul, found a way of separating cheap tallow (beef or mutton fat) into solid and liquid components. The solid part he called 'stearine' and had a higher melting point that crude tallow, which made it more desirable for candles. But stearine was more brittle and less glossy than wax, so Parisian manufacturers hit on a secret additive that when poured into the moulds corrected these problems. The nature of this additive was a closely guarded secret, kept from the public. But in 1834 the French authorities got wind that arsenic was the magic ingredient - and prohibited all future manufacture.

"Every trace of arsenicated candles was obliterated from the capital of France."

            But meanwhile, French candle makers sold the secret to their London counterparts and for two years, 1835 - 6, stearine-arsenic candles lit British homes, oblivious to the danger until one evening Professor Everitt smelt garlic.

            Everitt made his findings public and alarming notices were posted:

"Death in the candle…. may with propriety be called - Corpse Candles." The Lancet.

            Undesirable as inhaling arsenic may be, it seems perhaps these claims were a little exaggerated. Clinical trials where birds were exposed to burning composition candles demonstrated small finches in a distressed state and then died after several hours, but of larger mammals such as guinea pigs and rabbits, none died. 

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

But the report written by the medical committee put forward this question:

"Let us suppose,…that London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, whose chandeliers held 152 tapers…were to be lighted with stearine candles…In that case 608 grains of arsenious acid would be vaporised and floating in the air during the time of the performance. Is anyone prepared to assert that not one of the individuals present ..would not receive the slightest injury?"

            In other words - why take the risk? Especially since it was also found that the addition of a harmless ingredient, chalk, had the same beneficial effects against brittleness, as arsenic!

            And finally, in 1859 another chemist reported the smell of garlic from his candle. However, in this case the cause was the green pigment colouring the wax, Scheele's green. At this time there was a craze for green in home furnishings and …you guessed it…Scheele's green owed it's vivid pigment to the presence of arsenic (more of this next week.)

DEATH IN THE POT - Poison in Victorian Britain.

In this week's post about poison in Victorian Britain, we look at the hidden dangers in food. We start with the chilling tale of the sweet-shop owner, Joseph Neal, and his peppermint drops.



Punch parody of sweet making in Victorian Britain.

One Monday in October, 1858, Mr Neal sent his assistant to buy a quantity of plaster of Paris from the druggist. The reason? It was much cheaper than sugar and could be used as 'daft' or an inexpensive substitute to bulk up sweets. The assistant called on the chemist, who sent his apprentice to the cellar, where he weighed out twelve pounds of daft. Unfortunately, the new assistant measured out and mistakenly sold him the wrong white powder - arsenic. This deadly poison was taken back to the sweet shop where it was incorporated into peppermint drops - which killed twelve people and made over a hundred seriously ill.

Victorian Bradford - where Joseph Neal had his sweet shop.

But how did the chemist's apprentice get confused? The poison was labelled "Arsenic" but on the base of barrel. Also, the 'Sale of Arsenic Act' required the poison to be coloured before leaving the shop, but took no account of tubs of arsenic in storerooms waiting to be dispensed.

Peppermint creams.

The nub of the peppermint problem was substituting ingredients to increase profit, but this was nothing new. (A medieval test for sugar in beer was to sit a man in leather breeches on a stool covered in beer. When the ale dried, if the man stuck to the seat, the brewer was guilty of adulteration.) More seriously, it was not unusual to brighten sweets with the addition of red lead glaze, or copper to tinned pickles.

It was said that merchants were so driven by money that:

"the possible sacrifice of even a fellow creature's life is a secondary consideration."

In the 1820's the German chemist, Friedrich Accum took on a person crusade to stop food adulteration, the practice being so widespread:

"There is death in the pot."

Even bread and cheese commonly contained adulterants.

Even before Accum, in the 1790's an article in The Tatler warns about a:

"Fraternity of chemical operators, who work undergrounds…hidden from view…transmuting base ingredients [sub standard wine]…into the choicest products of the hills and valleys of France."

They did this by adding alum (to brighten colour) gypsum (to remove cloudiness) and sugar of lead (to counteract acidity). Not only that, but they often used bottles bought from pedlars who in turn had bought them from druggists who had previously used them to store arsenic!

Interestingly, one victim of adulterated wine was Francis Blandy (see Part One), when he partook of tainted wine in the Red Lion, Henley. His two drinking companions died; whilst he survived (He was later poisoned by his daughter who thought she was giving him 'forgiveness powder.')

And finally.
You would have expected the Victorian parliament to bring in rigorous laws, prohibiting the use of food adulteration - but not a bit of it! On the one side a public outcry led to an anti-adulteration bill being put before the House of Commons in 1857, but it was voted down, as was a similar bill in 1859. Oratory denounced the legislation as interference, that it:

"Treated the people of this country like children"

In other words, people could make their own decisions about what they bought and if might harm them - much like fast food today?

"Soon government would have such power as even to lay down the proportion of water a man might put in his grog."

Echoes of rebellion against the modern 'Nanny' state?

Additives? What additives?