Reddit reviews Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Nineteenth-Century Home
We found 4 Reddit comments about Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Nineteenth-Century Home. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Thames & Hudson
I'm studying mid 19th century poisons right now for a book I'm working on*. I'm familiar with this case, but the astounding thing to me is that anything came of it at all. It wasn't until the 1880s that it was generally accepted that arsenic—in any dosage—was hazardous.
Pretty much everything was poisonous in 1858! Wallpaper, fabric, wine and other bottled beverages, candles (tallow ingredient sub), children's toys, clothes and furniture, paint and anything that paint was used on, and perhaps most significantly, you could find arsenic in every household cupboard as it was the #1 vermin extermination method, and included in every imaginable type of medicine (most prominently in cough syrups, aka elixirs). And, of course, more poisons were used in production factories during the Industrial Revolution than we'll ever know.
What's truly remarkable is how many of the same arguments used back then to allow industry to continuing poisoning the general population, and most especially trade workers, are still used today. There was significant, and effective backlash to any regulations or laws to curb the sale and use of poisons (U.K. and U.S.).
Here's some tidbits, for those interested.
There's so much more, but I've got to get back to work. More reading: Bitten by Witch Fever
*My book is not really about poison. Not a poison expert. This is just stuff I picked up researching a minor theme, and it's off the top of my head. So, if I've got any details wrong, please feel free to correct me.
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Bitten By Witch-Fever is a book published in 2016 that details arsenic wallpapers. It’s been on my to-read list for a while.
Bitten b Witch Fever was beautiful and fun to read. It’s in between the size of a regular book and a coffee table book.
A little smaller, but equally interesting is A History of Beauty by Umberto Eco
I'm just finalizing all of mine! I'm paying for their H&MU, my MOH is getting this book since she is design and aesthetic goals, one of my bridesmaids is getting this Central Perk throw blanket since she is moving to NYC 2 days after the wedding, and finally my last bridesmaid is getting an Anastasia highlighter palette since she just got into makeup :D