DR. HILLS' REPORT UPON ARSENIC IN WALL PAPERS AND FABRICS. After a prolonged hearing before the committee on Public Health of the Legislature of 1891, at which much evidence was presented with reference to the dangers which may occur in connection with the use of arsenic as a pigment, for the purpose of coloring many of the articles in common household use, the following law was enacted: [CHAP. 374, ACTS OF 1891.] AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE SALE OF ARTICLES CONTAINING ARSENIC. Be it enacted, etc., as follows: SECTION 1. Whoever by himself or by his servant or agent, or as the servant or agent of any other person, manufactures, sells or exchanges, or has in his custody or possession with intent to sell or exchange, or exposes or offers for sale or exchange, any children's toys or confectionery, containing or coated wholly or in part with arsenic, shall be punished by fine of not less than fifty nor more than one hundred dollars. SECT. 2. The state board of health may make such investigations and inquiries as they deem necessary as to the existence of arsenic in any paper, fabric or other article offered for sale or exchange, and for that purpose may appoint inspectors and chemists, and expend an amount not exceeding one thousand dollars, and report to the next legislature in print on or before the first day of February in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two. SECT. 3. Every person offering or exposing for sale or exchange any paper, fabric or other article shall furnish a sample thereof sufficient for the purpose of analysis, where such sample can be obtained without damage to the remaining portion, to any inspector, chemist or other agent or officer employed by the state board of health, who shall apply to him therefor for that purpose and who shall tender him the value of the same. Whoever violates the provisions of this section shall be punished as provided in section one of this act. [Approved June 5, 1891. The State Board of Health attended to the duties authorized in the foregoing act, and appointed Dr. Wm. B. Hills of the medical department of Harvard University to make the investigations referred to in the second section of the act. The following report contains the results of his inquiries. The broader question as to the actual effect of the common use of arsenic as a pigment upon the public health appears to be excluded by the limited provisions of section 2 of this act. These more important questions are at present the subject of further investigations, and will be reported upon by the Board at a future day. The following investigation was undertaken in accordance with a Resolve adopted by the Legislature of 1891, whereby the State Board of Health was authorized to make such investigations and inquiries as it might deem necessary as to the existence of arsenic in any paper, fabric, or other article offered for sale. As the most practicable means of forming an opinion as to the extent to which arsenic and arsenical pigments are used at the present time, a large number of samples, of such articles in domestic use as have in former years contained dangerous quantities of arsenic, have been collected and subjected to a careful analysis for arsenic. Papers and fabrics have naturally occupied the most important place in this investigation; for the arsenical pigments used in the manufacture of these materials constitute the most important sources of chronic arsenical poisoning. In all 1,018 samples have been collected in twenty cities. and towns in different sections of the State. Of these, 629, or 61.8 per cent., were non-arsenical; 389, or 38.2 per cent., contained arsenic in appreciable quantities. The nature of the samples together with the results of the analyses are shown in the following table: |