542 



NATURE 



[April 4, 1901 



These profound symptoms of poisoning from such 

 minute doses have given rise to various explanations. The 

 fact that the toxic power of arsenic varies largely accord- 

 ing to the chemical form in which it is present, the 

 arseniates, for instance, being barely half as poisonous 

 as the arsenites, has led many to assume that the arsenic 

 was present in the beer either as an arsene, or even in 

 some more subtle biological form. The work of Gossio 

 and others upon the power of the penicillium brevicaule 

 to form highly poisonous gaseous substances from minute 

 traces of solid arsenic compounds has been adduced by 

 many in support of this hypothesis. 



A further consideration of interest in this connection 

 is the fact that arsenic must be considered, at any rate 

 to some extent, a cumulative poison. The interesting 

 and minute work of Gautier upon the excretion of 

 arsenic under normal conditions by the skin, the hair and 

 the menstrual fluid, and the storing of it in the thyroid 

 gland, the thymus gland and the brain, are of especial 

 interest. The recent researches of Sslowzow should also 

 find mention here. This observer found that in animals 

 poisoned with arsenic the arsenic was stored in the liver, 

 and further, that it formed a compound with the nucleins, 

 which showed itself to be resistant to the action of 

 hydrochloric acid and pepsin, and that it was, in all 

 probability, stored in this form in the cell nuclei. This 

 work, so far as concerns the storing of arsenic in the 

 liver and its excretion by the epidermal appendages, has 

 been recently confirmed by Dixon Mann. 



That arsenic is slowly excreted has been known for 

 sometime. E. Ludwig found arsenic in the urine of a 

 dog forty days after the last dose had been mgested. 

 Wood found it in the urine of patients eighty and ninety 

 days after intoxication with arsenic. 



Although arsenic may be in this sense cumulative, it 

 does not follow that its poisonous action is cumulative. 

 In fact, its forming an indigestible nuclein compound 

 speaks against this. Further, we know from clinical ex- 

 perience, from the Styrian arsenic eaters, and from 

 numerous pharmacological experiments on animals, that 

 tolerance to arsenic is easily produced. Indeed, continued 

 small doses of arsenic, so far from causing symptoms 

 allied to those which occurred in the beer poisoning 

 •epidemic, as a rule improve nutrition and have a general 

 tonic action. 



If we pass from the consideration of the nature of the 

 poison to the symptoms which occurred in the Man- 

 chester patients, we find many points of extreme interest. 

 Speaking generally, the phenomena present corresponded 

 more or less closely with the classical symptoms of 

 arsenical poisoning. It must be remembered, however, 

 that the discovery of selenium opens the whole question 

 of arsenical poisoning afresh. So far as pharmacological 

 •experiments upon animals go, the only difference between 

 the chronic poisonous action of these two substances is 

 that tolerance to selenium is apparently never produced, 

 and that this substance, in continued small doses, pro- 

 ■duces wasting by virtue of a specific stimulating action 

 which it exerts upon the breaking down of the nitro- 

 genous constituents of the tissues. Thus we must confess 

 that the presence of selenium along with arsenic in the 

 Manchester beer explains many otherwise anomalous 

 symptoms. 



It has long been known that excess of alcoholic 

 beverages causes in the drinkers a disease known as 

 peripheral neuritis. The role played by alcohol in this 

 disease has heretofore been regarded as sufficiently im- 

 portant to justify the designation of alcoholic neuritis 

 for this condition. It has, however, been observed that 

 the drinkers of certain kinds of alcoholic beverages are 

 much more prone to this affection than the drinkers of 

 others, and further, that the strength of the beverage in 

 alcohol seems to bear no proportion to its proneness to 

 •cause so-called alcoholic neuritis. Drinkers of distilled 



NO. 1640, VOL. 63] 



spirits and wines are much less liable to suffer from 

 peripheral neuritis than beer and stout drinkers. These 

 considerations have led many physicians to look upon 

 this disease as caused by the beverage rather than by the 

 alcohol (CaHflOH). Peripheral neuritis was a prominent 

 symptom in the Manchester epidemic, and there can be 

 little doubt it was caused by the arsenic and selenium 

 compounds in the beer. Other metallic and organic 

 poisons, such, for instance, as beri-beri, give rise to a 

 similar condition. This epidemic has, therefore, very 

 much increased the previous doubt concerning the part 

 played by alcohol itself in the so-called alcoholic 

 neuritis. 



With regard to the lessons to be learnt from the recent 

 beer-poisoning epidemic, the chief one certainly is to 

 beware of mineral acids in the preparation of all food- 

 stuffs. It is difficult to see how mineral acids, or at any 

 rate acids (in this connection must be observed the 

 difficulty of freeing an acid like tartaric acid from lead) 

 can be dispensed with. They can, however, certainly be 

 put on the market, from whatever source they may be 

 obtained, pure. Although absolute chemical purity must 

 be regarded as a dream of the fatuous ignoramus, there 

 should be no difficulty in the sulphuric acid manufacturers 

 providing an acid which one can term at least harmlessly 

 impure. A further important result of the investigations 

 attending this epidemic is the discovery of selenium in 

 poisonous doses in a beverage actually consumed. This 

 substance has no doubt slipped in and out of many 

 previous arsenic epidemics, escaping observation, as it 

 were, between the stools of chemistry and pharmacology. 

 Now that we are awake to its poisonous existence, in the 

 next arsenic epidemic, which we hope may be long 

 deferred, we shall be able, no doubt, to work out the exact 

 part it plays. It is interesting to note in this connection 

 that it is an impurity of both brimstone and pyrites acid, 

 and that it occurs along with tellurium in certain 

 Japanese sulphurs which are free from arsenic. 



MUSICAL ARCS. 



WE have already described in a previous issue 

 (Nature, December 20, 1900, p. 182) the dis- 

 covery of a new musical instrument in the electric arc 

 made by Mr. Duddell and communicated by him to the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers last December. The 

 fame, if not the music, of Mr. Duddell's arc penetrated, 

 it appears, to Vienna, where the experiments were 

 repeated at the Technological Institute, and thence 

 returned to the English lay Press. The Daily Mail of 

 January 12 last contained an article on "Music in 

 Flame," the result of an interview with Prof. Ayrton on 

 the subject of Mr. Duddell's experiments, in the course 

 of which he suggested that it might be possible to utilise 

 the discovery for the purpose of public entertainment. 

 Would it not be possible, for example, to play a tune 

 upon the arc lamps used in lighting a hall, the musician 

 being at a distance — even outside the building — and 

 playing on the ingenious key-board devised by Mr. 

 Duddell ? At the time this article appeared the prophecy 

 may have seemed somewhat extravagant. Mr. Duddell's 

 experiments were conducted, it will be remembered, by 

 shunting an arc burning between solid carbons— the 

 cored carbon arc has no music in its soul — by a circuit 

 containing capacity and self-induction, and the note 

 emitted by the arc was varied by altering the capacity or 

 self-induction in the shunt circuit. The shunt circuit 

 was, however, placed directly across the terminals of the 

 arc, and there was no evidence of any possibility of play- 

 ing tunes on the arc from any distance ; and, further, the 

 arc lamps used in the experiment were hand-fed and it 

 was not unreasonable to suppose that the mechanism 

 and magnet coils of an automatic arc lamp would 

 effectually interfere with the music. 



