SANGER. — CHRONIC ARSENICAL POISONING. 157 



Reichardt,* in 1883, mentions a case in which a certain room had 

 been covered for twenty years with a slightly arsenical paper. The 

 occupant had felt no ill effects, but on calcimining over the paper 

 with a green, which proved to contain a quantity of arsenic, symp- 

 toms were felt which were attributable to arsenical poisoning. The 

 calcimining was done in damp autumn weather, and the room was 

 used as a work-room until late at night. A garlic odor was noticed. 

 The urine, slightly acidified with nitric acid, was treated with sulphu- 

 retted hydrogen for 24 hours, and the resulting precipitate eventually 

 introduced into a Marsh reduction flask. By a method proposed by 

 Reichardt f himself, the gas from the flask was led into argentic 

 nitrate. The latter was then treated with bromine water, the argen- 

 tic bromide filtered off, and the arsenic acid in the filtrate precipitated 

 by magnesia mixture. A precipitate of ammonio-magnesic arseniate 

 could be detected, but not in sufficient amount to estimate. It must, 

 however, have been less than a milligram, as Reichardt claims to 

 be able to determine that amount by his method. 



I am unable to find any other detailed cases in which arsenic was 

 found in the urine up to the beginning of my own work in 1886, 

 although Wood t mentions the fact that he found arsenic in the urine 

 in a case of wall paper poisoning, and I do not know that others had 

 not done the same. In none of the cases, except that of Clarke, has 

 there been any quantitative analysis possible. Yet, with this same 

 exception, the amounts found have been exceedingly small, and in this 

 respect confirm the results obtained by me. 



Cases and Analytical Work. 



From the results above and my own, it is evident that the amount 

 of arsenic to be looked for in the urine is very small ; hence the 

 method of analysis becomes of the greatest importance. Every one 

 knows the wide distribution of arsenic, and unless we can, by the ut- 

 most care, shut out the possibility of its getting into our analysis, ex- 

 cept through the urine, the value of the analysis is nothing. Not only 

 must the reagents be most carefully tested in quantity greater than 

 likely to be used, but as few reagents as possible must be employed. 

 Dishes and other utensils must be scrupulously clean. 



The treatment of the urine in the cases below was as follows. To a 



* Archiv d. Pharm., [?»], XXI. 271. 



t Ibid., [3], XVII. 291. 



t Mass. State Board of Health Report, 1884. 



