''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 Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

-pigmented wallpaper. The book contains 86 samples of said

wallpaper Wallpaper is used in interior decoration to cover the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" to help cover uneve ...

. 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 Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the United States. It provides patient ca ...

, the U.S. National Library of Medicine in Bethesda,

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

, and the university libraries of

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

and the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

. The copy in the National Library of Medicine has been digitized and is freely available. Shadows from the walls of death page

References

External links

Full online scan
at the

United States National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...

{{authority control 1874 non-fiction books American non-fiction books Health and wellness books Arsenic Wallcoverings

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