Chronic Arsenical Poisoning

Abstract

There are three ways in which people may swallow arsenic in sufficient doses to produce signs of chronic poisoning. First, there may be some criminal interference in the diet, although the wish to exterminate one’s enemies with arsenic seems to arise less frequently than it did 100 years ago. In any case, it would be a bungling murderer who gave low doses for such a long time that the vicim developed chronic arsenism. Second, and also increasingly unusual, medical practitioners may supply arsenic to their patients as a tonic or as treatment for psoriasis, lichen planus, or syphilis. Fowler’s solution is not a modern form of therapy, but patients may still be found who were given long courses of therapeutic arsenic 30, 40, or 50 years ago. Quacks have also used arsenic as a panacea. In Ireland they sold it as a cure for cancer. Finally, there are sporadic reports of chronic arsenical intoxication following the use of contaminated drinking water, occurring in groups with a few individuals to a few hundred. These cases are almost invariably focused around contaminated wells.