Shadows from the Walls of Death

Shadows from the Walls of Death (1874), is a book that gathers real swaths of arsenic wallpaper sourced from stores across Michigan.

1862 wood engraving for Punch in response to chemist A. W. Hoffman's findings that green dresses and wreaths coloured with arsenic are toxic: “The Arsenic Waltz. The New Dance of Death. (Dedicated to the Green Wreath and Dress-Mongers.)” — Source.

In the 1800s bed rest was prescribed as a treatment for nervous exhaustion. Physician Robert Clark Kedzie observed that some patients descended into madness during bed rest and offered a chemical theory for this occurrence:

How many women have thus “gone into a decline,” I will not venture to guess. Perhaps a consideration of the “delicate state of her lungs” leads her to confine herself to her room, and the fear of “taking cold,” to avoid all ventilation; and thus she breathes constantly an air loaded with the breath of death. . . . and finally succumbs to consumption, — a consumption of arsenic in every breath she inhales!

Read More: Public Domain Review