Arsenic pervaded almost every aspect of life in nineteenth century Britain, leaving a toll of death and illness. A by-product of an emerging smelting industry, arsenic was cheap and readily available as a rat killer by the early 1800s. Arsenic also was odorless and tasteless and easily confused with flour or sugar and other cooking essentials. By the 1830s, morbid descriptions of murders with arsenic terrified the public and became a staple of the British popular press.

But most of the fatalities from arsenic were more pedestrian: from accidental use in food or from exposure to arsenical compounds in consumer goods such as fabric dyes and wallpapers, in facilities that made these products, and in the polluted air. Arsenic was used even in medications to treat everything from asthma and cancer to reduced libido and skin problems. Sadly, despite the evident dangers arsenic posed to Victorian Britons, regulation to protect health was painfully slow in coming in this age of laissez faire capitalism and governmental indifference. In its perverse way, arsenic was a perverse triumph of unregulated, free-market economics.

Dr. James C. Whorton, University of Washington professor emeritus of bioethics and humanities, chronicles this history of criminal and environmental arsenic poisoning — and official malfeasance — in his carefully researched and lively new book, The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play (Oxford University Press, 2010).

This spring, the British press greeted Whorton’s book with enthusiastic reviews. The esteemed critic John Carey, in The [London] Sunday Times, called the book “gripping and terrible” and noted that Whorton “writes from a firmly scientific viewpoint, [but] it is the human tragedies he keeps unveiling that give the book its disturbing power.”

Whorton’s other books include Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America (1974), Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (1982), Inner Hygiene: Constipation and the Pursuit of Health in Modern Society (2000) and Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America (2002). He lives with his wife in Tacoma, in an area where the old Asarco smelter once deposited tons of arsenic.

Robin Lindley: What prompted your interest in arsenic?

James Whorton: I got interested in it as a graduate student and wrote a dissertation and book on history of insecticides and public health [Before Silent Spring], and discovered that arsenic was a common environmental pollutant in the 19th century. Arsenic compounds such as Paris green, lead arsenate, and calcium arsenate were common in the first pesticides. Health concerns arose about these substances on fruits and vegetables, so I did some research on what was known about arsenic poisoning. I discovered that not a lot was known until the end of the century when people were worried about arsenic in all sorts of things before it was tied to food. Once I got into it, I got more absorbed in the subject than any research project I’d been involved with.

Lindley: Can you talk about your research process?

Whorton: Most of the research was from published sources. I went through all of the British medical journals from 1800 to 1900. I also consulted books on arsenic, and newspapers. There were thousands of articles on arsenic, especially cases of poisoning and the trials, and in England I searched records of poisoning trials and the debates in Parliament over arsenic problems.

Lindley: Although you note that men committed about 90 percent of spousal homicides, the popular press seemed preoccupied with poisonings committed by women.

Whorton: There was some truth to the belief that women were the poisoners because, when women decided to kill, it wasn’t as easy for them to do it by brute force as it was for a man. Poison was an easier way to kill, and the easiest way to administer it was through food, and the wife was the cook. The wife could put the poison in the husband’s tea and the problem was taken care of.

Once it became evident that arsenic poisoning was increasing in the 1840s and there were cases of women being arrested and convicted, there was a hysterical overreaction and fear that virtually every woman in the country was trying to find a way to knock off her husband or kids.

Lindley: What is arsenic?

Whorton: The word arsenic as used normally by the general public is not the same for a chemist. For the chemist, it’s element number 33 of the periodic table, and is not particularly toxic. What everybody means by arsenic is arsenic trioxide, or “white arsenic” as it was called in the 19th century, and it’s extremely toxic. There are other toxic arsenic compounds, but white arsenic was the form popular among the poisoners because it was in such large quantities by the 18th century as a by-product of smelting process of various metals. Smelters found they had tons of it they needed to dispose of, and at the same time there was a big rat problem in urban and rural settings. It became common in the 18th century to use arsenic as rat poison, and the public at large became aware of the stuff. It was widely available and very inexpensive.

And it was the ideal poison because it was colorless and tasteless. The only thing that gave it away was that it wasn’t that soluble. It had to be dissolved in tea or something else hot. When the liquid started to cool, some would precipitate out and you might see or taste strange particles. Someone said it felt like he had swallowed sand and it was gritty. So you had to use it hot liquids like coffee or tea or disguise it in porridge or in bread and other solid foods.

Lindley: You mention that arsenic was used as a poison as far back as Roman emperor Nero and earlier.

Whorton In ancient times, there were other versions of arsenic, primarily sulfide compounds. The white arsenic wasn’t discovered until the Middle Ages, but even then it wasn’t used in large quantities, except by people of power like the Borgias who used it to get rid of rivals. It wasn’t until it was mass-produced in the metal refining industry of the 18th century that it was democratized. Everybody could afford it and there was no control of the sale of it.

To a modern ear, that sets you back — that there was no regulation. Poisons like that now have restrictions. There was nothing at all in Britain until the 1851 Sale of Arsenic Act, which still didn’t keep it from being sold, but required records of who purchased it and for what purpose, so that if there was a poisoning, there would be a paper trail. It also required coloring agents be added so it couldn’t be disguised as sugar or flour. But it wasn’t that difficult to find. A pharmacist or grocer could sell it without adding a coloring agent. There were still hundreds of poisonings with white arsenic after the 1851 Act.

Lindley: It seems that corporate greed and laissez faire capitalism are villains in the book.

Whorton:Yes. With respect to the inclusion of arsenic compounds, particularly the green pigment — Scheele’s green and Schweinfurt green — that was used in wallpaper and all sorts of fabrics, the manufacturers used these compounds for a visually appealing product [while] they ignored evidence that it was toxic, and flatly denied it like cigarette manufacturers denying the evidence of carcinogens in tobacco.