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Poison Book Project
The Poison Book Project is a project of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library and the University of Delaware to identify and catalog books known to contain poisonous substances, particularly arsenic in Paris green pigments. It was started in 2019 when Winterthur staff members Melissa Tedone and Rosie Grayburn identified a book containing Paris green in the institution's collection. The project has since confirmed at least 100 other books from libraries across the world that contain Paris green, allowing librarians to take measures to minimize the risk to those handling the books. Origins The project was started by Melissa Tedone, head of library materials conservation at the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library in Delaware, United States. In 2019, whilst conserving one of the library's books, the 1857 ''Rustic Adornments for Homes and Taste'', she noticed through a microscope that fragments of the green pigment-dyed starch used to strengthen the bookcloth were flaking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vermillion
Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It is very often synonymous with red orange, which often takes a modern form just 11% brighter (at full brightness). Etymology and orthography The word vermilion came from the Old French word ''vermeillon'', which was derived from ''vermeil'', from the Latin ''vermiculus'', the diminutive of the Latin word ''vermis'', or worm. The name originated because it had a similar color to the natural red dye made from an insect, '' Kermes vermilio'', which was widely used in Europe. The first recorded use of "vermilion" as a color name in English was in 1289. The term cinnabar was used interchangeably with vermilion until the 17th century, when vermilion became the more common name. Now the term "cinnabar" is used in mineralogy and crystallography for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Databases
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poisoning And Certain Other Consequences Of External Causes
A poison can be any substance that is harmful to the body. It can be swallowed, inhaled, injected or absorbed through the skin. Poisoning is the harmful effect that occurs when too much of that substance has been taken. Poisoning is not to be confused with envenomation. Acute poisoning is exposure to a poison on one occasion or during a short period of time. Symptoms develop in close relation to the degree of exposure. Absorption of a poison is necessary for systemic poisoning (that is, in the blood throughout the body). In contrast, substances that destroy tissue but do not absorb, such as lye, are classified as corrosives rather than poisons. Furthermore, many common household medications are not labeled with skull and crossbones, although they can cause severe illness or even death. In the medical sense, toxicity and poisoning can be caused by less dangerous substances than those legally classified as a poison. Toxicology is the study and practice of the symptoms, mech ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library Science
Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to library, libraries; the collection, organization, Preservation (library and archival science), preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the political economy of information. Martin Schrettinger, a Bavarian librarian, coined the discipline within his work (1808–1828) ''Versuch eines vollständigen Lehrbuchs der Bibliothek-Wissenschaft oder Anleitung zur vollkommenen Geschäftsführung eines Bibliothekars''. Rather than classifying information based on nature-oriented elements, as was previously done in his Bavarian library, Schrettinger organized books in alphabetical order. The first American school for library science was founded by Melvil Dewey at Columbia University in 1887. Historically, library s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shadows From The Walls Of Death
''Shadows from the Walls of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers'' is an 1874 book by Dr. Robert C. Kedzie (1823–1902) of Michigan. The book warns of the dangers of then commonly used arsenic-pigmented wallpaper. The book contains 86 samples of said wallpaper. Due to the dangerous amount of arsenic in the work, only five of the original 100 copies have survived. Most copies were destroyed by the recipient libraries. The extant copies are only handled using special safety precautions. , the remaining copies were held at Harvard University Medical School, the U.S. National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, and the university libraries of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan. The copy in the National Library of Medicine has been digitized and is freely available. See also *Scheele's Green *Poison Book Project, an initiative aiming to identify and catalogue antique books containing hazardous substances su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raman Spectroscopy
Raman spectroscopy () (named after Indian physicist C. V. Raman) is a spectroscopic technique typically used to determine vibrational modes of molecules, although rotational and other low-frequency modes of systems may also be observed. Raman spectroscopy is commonly used in chemistry to provide a structural fingerprint by which molecules can be identified. Raman spectroscopy relies upon inelastic scattering of photons, known as Raman scattering. A source of monochromatic light, usually from a laser in the visible, near infrared, or near ultraviolet range is used, although X-rays can also be used. The laser light interacts with molecular vibrations, phonons or other excitations in the system, resulting in the energy of the laser photons being shifted up or down. The shift in energy gives information about the vibrational modes in the system. Infrared spectroscopy typically yields similar yet complementary information. Typically, a sample is illuminated with a laser beam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library Company Of Philadelphia
The Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP) is a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia. Founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a library, the Library Company of Philadelphia has accumulated one of the most significant collections of historically valuable manuscripts and printed material in the United States. The current collection size is approximately 500,000 books and 70,000 other items, including 2,150 items that once belonged to Franklin, the Mayflower Compact, major collections of 17th-century and Revolution-era pamphlets and ephemera, maps, and whole libraries assembled in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection also includes first editions of ''Moby-Dick'' and ''Leaves of Grass''. Early history The Library Company was an offshoot of the Junto, a discussion group in colonial Philadelphia, that gravitated around Benjamin Franklin. On July 1, 1731, Franklin and a number of his fellow members among the Junto drew up articles of agreement to found a library, for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercury Sulfide
Mercury sulfide, or mercury(II) sulfide is a chemical compound composed of the chemical elements mercury and sulfur. It is represented by the chemical formula HgS. It is virtually insoluble in water. Crystal structure HgS is dimorphic with two crystal forms: * red cinnabar (α-HgS, trigonal, hP6, P3221) is the form in which mercury is most commonly found in nature. Cinnabar has rhombohedral crystal system. Crystals of red are optically active. This is caused by the Hg-S helices in the structure. * black metacinnabar (β-HgS) is less common in nature and adopts the zinc blende (''T''2d-''F'3m'') crystal structure. Preparation and chemistry β-HgS precipitates as a black solid when Hg(II) salts are treated with H2S. The reaction is conveniently conducted with an acetic acid solution of mercuric acetate. With gentle heating of the slurry, the black polymorph converts to the red form. β-HgS is unreactive to all but concentrated acids. Mercury is produced from the cinnabar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrome Yellow
__NOTOC__ Chrome yellow is a yellow pigment in paints using monoclinic lead(II) chromate (PbCrO4). It occurs naturally as the mineral crocoite but the mineral ore itself was never used as a pigment for paint. After the French chemist Louis Vauquelin discovered the new element chromium in 1797 lead chromate was synthesized in the laboratory and used as a pigment beginning in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Chrome yellow had been commonly made by mixing solutions of lead nitrate and potassium chromate and filtering off the lead chromate precipitate. The pigment tends to react with hydrogen sulfide and darken on exposure to air over time, forming lead sulfide, and it contains the toxic heavy metal lead plus the toxic, carcinogenic chromate. For these reasons, it was replaced by another pigment, cadmium yellow (mixed with enough cadmium orange to produce a color equivalent to chrome yellow). Darkening may also occur from reduction by sulfur dioxide. Good qual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winterthur Museum, Garden And Library
Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is an American estate and museum in Winterthur, Delaware. Pronounced “winter-tour," Winterthur houses one of the richest collections of Americana in the United States. The museum and estate were the home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880–1969), Winterthur's founder and a prominent antiques collector and horticulturist. History Estate The property where Winterthur sits was purchased by Éleuthère Irénée du Point (E. I. du Pont) between 1810 and 1818 and was used for farming and sheep-raising. In 1837, E. I du Pont's heirs sold 445 acres of the land to E. I.'s business partner from France, Jacques Antoine Bidermann (1790–1865), and his wife Evelina Gabrielle du Pont (1796–1863) for the purpose of establishing their estate. Evelina was the second daughter of E. I. Du Pont's seven children. Between 1839 and 1842, the couple built a twelve-room Greek revival manor house on the property and named their estate Winterthur after Biderma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver and was formerly named hydrargyrum ( ) from the Greek words, ''hydor'' (water) and ''argyros'' (silver). A heavy, silvery d-block element, mercury is the only metallic element that is known to be liquid at standard temperature and pressure; the only other element that is liquid under these conditions is the halogen bromine, though metals such as caesium, gallium, and rubidium melt just above room temperature. Mercury occurs in deposits throughout the world mostly as cinnabar ( mercuric sulfide). The red pigment vermilion is obtained by grinding natural cinnabar or synthetic mercuric sulfide. Mercury is used in thermometers, barometers, manometers, sphygmomanometers, float valves, mercury switches, mercury relays, fluorescent lamps and other devices, though concerns about the element's toxicity have led to mercury thermometers and sphygmomanometers being largely p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
