On Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Bjarne og Leif Drews wrote:
Not a reply to the previous mail about books, but the head`er made me think
about a story i heard about poison dyes.
In about 1840ies i heard there was a new invention with a very bright green
colour. They made wall hangings with this dyed silks and also it became a
very popular colour for fashionable ball dresses. But they didnt realise that
it was a very poisonable dye. The skin would consume the poison.
Have anybody other heard this?
It was a story i heard at Gammel Estrup where they have a room with silk
tapestries in this collour.
Bjarne
In his book Jim Liles (The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing) mentions
Scheele's green--he references J.N.Napier (A Manual of Dyeing and Dyeing
Receipts, 1875) as complaining that Scheele's green poisoned the maker of
the dye, the winders of dyed yarn, and the person using the dyed article.
He says it was discovered in 1770, and that Napoleon and a number of
his servants in exile suffered from arsenic poisoning possibly from the
wallpaper.
He also mentiones lead chromate yellow, that it is poisonous, and dates it
to 1840, but he doesn't say whether it's just the dyestuff itself that is
poisonous or if the dyed articles are also poisonous.
Pixel/Margaret
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