Re: drinking in the darkroom

Nope, it was potassium bichromate. I have the article from the BJP xeroxed.
In fact, I have quite a few articles about this xeroxed because there were a
number of pot bi poisonings (as well as severe ulcerations from continually
putting hands in vats of the stuff) over the span of a few years which led
to a controversy about putting this on a "poison list". Apparently there
were no MSDS sheets back then. :)

One pharmacist put pot bichromate instead of pot bicarbonate in a cough
syrup and the person died over a period of time.

The thing that surprised me about the beer story was that the worker was
drinking beer on the job. A nice mug of pot bi does look just like an
Amstel...so he was probably pretty looped and didn't notice it until he
drank it up.
Chris

> On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, Christina Z. Anderson wrote:
>>
>> Speaking of which, you know in the late 1800's/early 1900's there were
>> deaths from potassium bichromate because of people drinking it. One man
>> thought it was his beer and drank it up. I read that, and thought, how
>> could you mix up the two? The other day I was doing gums and went to get
>> my drink (coffee), and picked up the wrong cup for a brief second--my gum
>> mixing cup (plastic see thru). Then I realized how easy it would be to
>> do that, even when the cups don't look alike.
>> Chris
>
> The story I remember was, I think, in Bill Jay's "Cyanide and Spirits,"
> but it wasn't potassium bichromate -- rather it was potassium cyanide
> confused with the beer. Which does seem more likely: The cyanide, being
> very lethal, would act quickly, before the drinker noticed the taste.
> Bichromate, however lethal it might be, is probably slower. (After all,
> they used to use it to preserve sausage.) Surely even English beer would
> taste noticeably different.
>
> J.
>
Received on Tue Nov 2 09:01:41 2004