As the title suggests, The Arsenic Century charts the history of the use of the heavy metal at home, work, and play across nineteenth-century Britain. Whorton chose to emphasize this period due to the extensive incidence of both intentional and nonintentional poisoning and the democratization of its criminal use. He selected Britain, because of the dominance of laissez-faire and lack of regulatory and prohibitive traditions, and arsenic over other heavy metals and noxious materials, such as mercury or soot, because “no other substance other than lead could begin to rival the extent and variety of arsenic laden-threats in the environment” (xv).

Whorton begins by vividly detailing the effects of arsenic on the human body and the historical development of its nefarious and formidable reputation as a tool of choice in both murder and suicide in the period. Drawing on contemporary legal, medical, and popular literature, the author reveals how fear of poisoning became a public preoccupation in the Victorian period, exacerbated by expanding awareness and knowledge of the poison, its affordability and availability, and the rise of the insurance industry. Arsenic provided the ideal means for this “new race of poisoners,’’ as Whorton described those who poisoned for profit (28), because of the substance’s ability to imitate common symptoms of disease (31). This is well illustrated by the case of Mary Ann Cotton, who murdered her mother, three husbands, and fifteen children and stepchildren, whose deaths were all originally attributed to gastric conditions. Cotton’s story also highlights two further characteristics common to the “new race” as identified by Whorton. She was of both working-class origins and female. Cotton and other examples, such as Sarah Chesham and Betty Eccles, detailed in the study, support Whorton’s suggestion that the period witnessed the universal accessibility of arsenic’s criminal use and challenged the contemporary imagery of women as cut from a finer cloth (35).

The “new race of poisoners” prompted the physicians of the day to strive for new and accurate ways of detecting the presence of arsenic in viscera, in ingested food, and in evacuated fluids after death (73). Indeed, Cotton herself was eventually exposed by advances in forensic toxicology. The tests that developed, Whorton suggests, made the act of poisoning “a great deal riskier for the perpetrator than it had ever been before” (111), but the presence of arsenic did not necessarily indicate foul play. The substance was pervasive in the Victorian household. It was not only used as a poison for vermin and an insecticide, it was also found in food, beer, candles, fabrics, wallpapers, paints, and medicines. In the latter instance, arsenic became a “therapeutic mule” ( 236), a cure-all for a variety of conditions ranging from simple, self-limiting complaints to terminal disease. Perhaps the most curious of all the victims of unintentional poisonings were those who habitually consumed arsenic in lethal quantities for its alleged effects of increased energy and endurance. This was, the author describes, a practice common in the southern Austrian region of Styria. Although largely dismissed by the medical profession, arsenic did find its way into beauty preparations, as Mother Nature’s great secret. Deliberate and/or accidental consumption paved the way for what became know as the “Styrian defence,” whereby “crafty lawyers” could argue that the victim was exposed to arsenic by means other than intentional poisoning (285).

For those who escaped both deliberate and unintentional exposure in the home, there was always the workplace. A myriad of occupations exposed workers, such as the men who wrought and smelted metallic ore and the men who ensured the health of sheep by periodically dousing the animals in arsenical dips, to the toxin in the nineteenth century. Arsenic in the workplace also straddled the home environment by the production of green pigment that found its way into artificial flowers, wallpapers, and by the taxidermist’s preservation of fur and feathers. Although arsenical paints, paper, and cloth are no longer manufactured, Whorton draws attention to the legacy of arsenic by highlighting the hazards that continue into present day faced by museum curators handling historical artifacts, the internal renovation of Victorian properties, and the remediated smelter sites where the arsenical subsoil remains hidden beneath new luxury developments. Arsenic in the nineteenth century, Whorton concludes, provides “a backdrop against which one can consider the myriad chemical threats facing the world today” (359).

The Arsenic Century is a compelling and entertaining read, with much tongue-in-cheek humor, but it is not for the fainthearted, as symptoms and distress are graphically described and illustrated. The narrative is a complex mix of quotation and the author’s own words, which creates the feel of a Victorian melodrama. It is well researched and finely detailed with the history of legislative controls, medical advances, and the development of medical jurisprudence all successfully interwoven throughout the narrative. Although the text has wide popular appeal, it will also be of interest to scholars researching environmental, legal, and medical history.