Scheele’s Green Was Poison
One of the main components in Scheele’s Green was arsenic. Prolonged exposure to arsenic caused headaches, cramping, vomiting, and as symptoms worsened, could be fatal. Scheele knew about the potential toxicity but profit superseded concern. While cases of unintentional arsenic poisoning and death are documented in the textile manufacturing facilities that worked with the dye every day, or where children played on dyed carpets or when the green flecked off wallpaper, to be inhaled or ingested in dust, wearing the color was less likely to kill the wearer than simply to cause discomfort.
Side effects of Scheele’s Green on clothing included nail discoloration, rash, painful skin lesions, color leeching onto the skin, and in the worst cases, open, oozing sores. By the early 1900s, governments started to limit the use of arsenic for ingestion and in everyday items, but by then the Scheele’s Green trend had played itself out.
