That Book is Poison: Even More Victorian Covers Found to Contain Toxic Dyes
Freeman writes:
In April, the National Library of France removed four 19th century books, all published in Great Britain, from its shelves because the covers were likely laced with arsenic. The books have been placed in quarantine for further analysis to determine exactly how much arsenic is present.
[...] Chemists from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, have also been studying Victorian books from that university's library collection in order to identify and quantify levels of poisonous substances in the covers. They reported their initial findings this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver.
[...] The Lipscomb effort was inspired by the University of Delaware's Poison Book Project, established in 2019 as an interdisciplinary crowdsourced collaboration between university scientists and the Winterthur Museum, Garden, and Library. The initial objective was to analyze all the Victorian-era books in the Winterthur circulating and rare books collection for the presence of an arsenic compound called cooper acetoarsenite, an emerald green pigment that was very popular at the time to dye wallpaper, clothing, and cloth book covers. Book covers dyed with chrome yellow-favored by Vincent van Gogh-aka lead chromate, were also examined, and the project's scope has since expanded worldwide.
The Poison Book Project is ongoing, but 50 percent of the 19th century cloth-case bindings tested so far contain lead in the cloth across a range of colors, as well as other highly toxic heavy metals: arsenic, chromium, and mercury.
[...] The project lists several recommendations for the safe handling and storage of such books, such as wearing nitrile gloves-prolonged direct contact with arsenical green pigment, for instance, can lead to skin lesions and skin cancer-and not eating, drinking, biting one's fingernails or touching one's face during handling, as well as washing hands thoroughly and wiping down surfaces. Arsenical green books should be isolated for storage and removed from circulating collections, if possible. And professional conservators should work under a chemical fume hood to limit their exposure to arsenical pigment dust.
[...] "These old books with toxic dyes may be in universities, public libraries, and private collections," said Abigail Hoermann, an undergraduate studying chemistry at Lipscomb University who is among those involved in the effort, led by chemistry professor Joseph Weinstein-Webb. "So, we want to find a way to make it easy for everyone to be able to find what their exposure is to these books, and how to safely store them."
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