Today I Learned …

Shadows From The Walls of Death, an 1874 book by US author Dr. Robert M. Kedzie, contained samples of green arsenic-pigmented wallpaper and was considered so dangerous that it could kill a careless reader. He had 100 books produced as a way of warning of the dangers of such decoration; about 65 percent of all wallpaper in American homes at the time contained arsenic, which admittedly makes a very pretty green paper. He distributed the book to public libraries across Michigan with a note to librarians telling them not to let children touch the pages. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Escape the Ordinary)