How Antique Books Can Kill You
But the bright colors of past centuries are dangerous to human life and health: toxic substances were used to obtain them. So lovers of emerald book covers could pay for their preferences with their own health.
Why Books Are Dangerous
One of the most popular dyes of that time was copper acetoarsenite (Scheele's green), an emerald-green dye based on arsenic. It was used to dye fabrics, wallpaper, and book bindings. Another dye that was common at that time, which was used to coat and impregnate upholstery fabrics, children's toys, and even building walls, was lead chromate. Let's also remember lead white with cobalt blue. All of them were extremely dangerous to human health.
Paint and pigment workers, artists and builders often suffered from lead poisoning, or saturnism. Symptoms included anemia, abdominal pain, tooth decay, paralysis, seizures, and damage to the nervous system and brain. In the 19th century, it sometimes resulted in death. Cognitive and behavioral disorders, developmental delays in children, respiratory diseases, skin diseases and damage to internal organs were not uncommon. There are documented caseswhen entire families were poisoned and even died due to dangerous pigments that were literally all around them.
Many old books from the 19th and early 20th centuries with cloth bindings are now stored in public and private libraries, universities, museums and private homes. Their covers may also contain toxic dyes based on lead, arsenic, chromium and mercury. People who frequently come into contact with old books are at risk of poisoning even today. But how did scientists find out about all this?
The Poisoned Book Project
In 2019, the University of Delaware and the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library began a collaborative research project project The Poisoned Book is an interdisciplinary initiative to analyse and identify toxic dyes in Victorian books. The project involves scientists and students, chemists, librarians and conservationists.
Over five years of work, it became known that dangerous levels of toxic substances were contained in half of the 19th century books studied by specialists. Books that were painted with Scheele's green and chrome yellow turned out to be especially dangerous. In the case of lead chromate, the toxic substances were firmly fixed in the fabric of the covers and rarely got into the environment.
Unfortunately, this cannot be said about the emerald green pigment, it is very fragile. Its particles are destroyed even by weak physical impact – for example, rubbing the painted cover. Then toxic dust gets into the air and onto human skin. Regular inhalation of poisoned air can provoke serious health problems.
Research is ongoing, but scientists have already formed a list of basic rules for those who work with Victorian-era publications. First, gloves will help protect your skin from contact with poisons and heavy metals. Second, when working with old books, you must not drink, eat, or touch your face or lips with your hands. Third, you must thoroughly wash your hands after contact with books and wipe down all surfaces where toxic substances may have come into contact. Now remember all those old movies where people lick their fingers before turning the page. In the Victorian era, this habit was literally deadly.
Researchers believe that books containing copper acetoarsenite should be stored in special rooms. Restorers are advised to work with books in a room with a fume hood to reduce the harmful effects on the body.
Dangerous Libraries
The Poison Book Project has attracted worldwide attention. In April 2024, National Library of France removed from shelves four 19th-century English books that could potentially contain arsenic in their cloth bindings. The suspects two-volume edition Edward Hayes' Ballads of Ireland (1855), An Anthology of Translated Roumanian Poetry (1856) and the Royal Horticultural Society's book for 1862–63 were sent to the lab for further analysis.
Chemists from Lipscomb University (Nashville, Tennessee) also conducted similar research in 2022. This week they presented the first results obtained at conferences ASC Fall 2024 in Denver. Using X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), scientists found that some books contained lead levels more than twice the legal limit.
The Lipscomb project was initiated by librarians who learned of the Poisoned Book Project and approached members of the chemistry department with the idea of examining the Beeman library books. Abigail Hoerman, a Lipscomb chemistry student who is participating in the study under the direction of Professor Joseph Weinstein-Webb, notedthat “old printed editions with toxic dyes may be found in universities, public libraries and private collections.”
“We aim to develop a method that will allow everyone to learn more about the potential impact of these books on humans and ensure the safe storage of the collection.”“,” says Hoermann.
The team first used X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to analyze the samples and look for arsenic or other heavy metals in the covers. Then, using atomic emission spectroscopy measured the concentration of poisons. The scientists also used X-ray diffraction to study in depth the chemical composition and structure of toxic pigments found in printed publications.
The study found that some of the samples contained lead chromate, the main component of chrome yellowing. The chemists had not expected that the book covers would contain much more lead than chromium, even though lead chromate is a compound made up of one atom of lead and one atom of chromium. That is, there should be equal amounts of these metals.
A hypothesis has emerged that other lead compounds, such as lead oxide (PbO) or lead sulfide (PbS), were also used to create the pigments. They could have been added to achieve certain pigment characteristics, such as increased brightness and color fastness. It turns out that the chemical composition of pigments in old books may be more complex than previously thought. These compounds may pose additional danger to people.
Some of the Beeman Library's books contained more than twice the legal limit for lead and six times the legal limit for chromium. The decision was made to seal all the 19th-century color books in plastic for storage until each one could be analyzed. The books containing hazardous substances were removed from circulation and stored according to the recommendations of the Poison Book Project.
So a book can be not only a person's friend, but also his enemy – and quite a dangerous one at that. True, if you are careful, nothing terrible will happen: gloves and a respirator will solve the problem. And the problem itself concerns an extremely small percentage of readers – who among us regularly deals with Victorian books?
