Report of the Committee appointed by the Westminster Medical Society, to investigate the subject of adulterating candles with arsenic; and to ascertain the probable effect of the use of such candles upon health and life ... / transcribed and reprinted by James Scott.

  • Westminster Medical Society (London, England)
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee appointed by the Westminster Medical Society, to investigate the subject of adulterating candles with arsenic; and to ascertain the probable effect of the use of such candles upon health and life ... / transcribed and reprinted by James Scott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and also as to the probable effect it might have on animal life during combustion: eschewing, at the same time, every personal reference to the manufacturers and sellers of such candles. To these instructions your Committee have strictly adhered, and they now present to the Society the result of their labours. *> II—HISTORY OF THE NEW CANDLES. Those who have followed the progress of ana¬ lytical and organic chemistry for the last quarter of a century, need not be reminded, that Chevreul, one of the most distinguished French chemists of the present day,—in the course of a laborious and interesting investigation into the O p. nature and elementary composition of animal fats—an investigation which lasted ten years, and has been characterised by Berzelius, as the most complete and most perfect that has ever been un¬ dertaken bv chemists—discovered that common tallow consisted of two distinct substances; the one solid, the other of the consistence and ap¬ pearance of olive oil; to the former of which he assigned the name of Stearine (tallow) and to the second, that of Elaine (oil.) The first, of these substances, the only one with which the Committee had any concern, when modified by saponification,- crystallizes (in its pure state) in long, brilliant, and silky needles, arranged in large compact masses, beautifully white, almost odourless, and resembling, in a great degree, those square lumps of pure spermaceti, which may be seen exhibited in the windows of wax-