CASES OF 



17 



other skin eruptions were noticed. ArsenJ^lj^tee$tfgwas thought of as pos- 

 sible, but there was no wall paper, no carpets, or other suspicious articles. The 

 health of the inmates of the asylum grew worse. Bronchitis appeared, and two 

 children died from inflammation and ulceration of the air passages, involving the 

 pleura. Some blue dresses recently furnished by the asylum to all the nurses fell 

 under suspicion and were found to contain much arsenic. They were discarded, 

 and the health of the institution was reestablished. Much of the arsenic was 

 found to be loose in the cloth. The dresses were therefore thoroughly washed in 

 the winter of 1901 and resumed by the nurses. Very soon after both nurses and 

 babies began to have sores on their fingers and other signs similar to those which 

 had appeared before. The dresses were again discarded, the symptoms again 

 disappeared and have not recurred in the past two years. 



CASE VIII. 



W., a clerk in a large dry-goods house, entered my service in the Massachusetts 

 Hospital, in the fall of 1891 , with poor general health and marked neuritis in all the 

 extremities. It was with much difficulty that he could pick a pin from the table. 

 Neither alcohol, rheumatism, lead, nor gout could be considered as causative of 

 neuritis. The physician under whose care he had been, a gentleman well known 

 to me, had given him no arsenic. His bedroom wall paper, which had been 

 applied for eight years, was highly arsenical, and arsenic was found in his urine. 

 He soon began to improve, was discharged from the hospital, and after a time 

 resumed work, discarding the arsenical wall paper. I saw him very recently 

 again, and found his general condition still below par, with some neuritis still 

 present, though not enough to seriously interfere with his work. An electric 

 examination, which Dr. K. J. Putnam was kind enough to make, confirmed the 

 diagnosis of neuritis. & 



CASE IX. 



In the autumn of 1883, Mr. A. and wife took a house in Cambridge, of which 

 four rooms had been recently papered. In the spring of 1885 the halls of the 

 house were covered and either in 1883 or 1885 the other rooms. The papers con- 

 tained the following amounts of arsenic, calculated as arsenious oxid: 



Determination of arsenious oxid in wall papers. 



a Large amount. 



For several months after taking the home no trouble was experienced, but 

 toward the summer of 1884 Mr. A. and his wife, together with a gentleman who 

 occupied the house with them, began to feel some discomfort. This disappeared 

 during the absence of the family from the house during the summer, but began 



Shattuck, Trans. Path. Soc. of Phila., 1891-93, 16: 285. 



, Trans. Path. Soc. of Phila., 1891-93, 16: 285-300. 



