White arsenic
Arsenic; “inheritance powder”
- Known today as
- Arsenic trioxide.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 3 older authorities
- Constituents
- arsenic trioxide
- Poisoning
- Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
- Earliest authority here
- The Affair of the Poisons
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Deadly. Historical description only.
White arsenic: what was it used for?
Caustic for cancers of the skin; in small doses against agues; and the favorite poison of history.
White arsenic: what does modern science say?
Deadly; yet arsenic trioxide is today an approved and effective drug for one form of leukemia. Arsenic kills by binding the enzymes of the cell’s energy; a hundred milligrams is a fatal dose. Yet in 2000 arsenic trioxide was approved in the United States for acute promyelocytic leukaemia, in which, with retinoic acid, it cures most patients, and it is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. Paul Ehrlich’s arsphenamine, Salvarsan, the first drug against syphilis, was an arsenical too.
White arsenic: is it poisonous?
Yes, and it can kill. Its poisoning is mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony: Minutes to hours for a large dose; months or years for the slow poisoning of the trades. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- Trivalent arsenic binds the thiol groups of enzymes, above all those of cellular respiration.
- Checked against ChEMBL
- arsenic trioxide: ChEMBL’s curated mechanism: inhibitor Thioredoxin reductase 1, cytoplasmic.
- Toxic dose
- About 100–200 mg; 2 mg per kilogram.
- Syndrome
- Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
- Standing
- Arsenic trioxide is on the WHO list of essential medicines for acute promyelocytic leukaemia.
- Emsley, J. (2005). The Elements of Murder. Verified against its record · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192805997.001.0001
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
White arsenic: what lore surrounds it?
Tasteless, odourless, and cheap, it was the poison of the Borgias in legend and of the Victorian poisoners in fact, until James Marsh’s test of 1836 could find it in a body; after that the poisoners turned elsewhere. Madame Bovary dies of it. Green wallpapers coloured with arsenic were blamed for sickrooms that would not mend, and the Scheele’s green of Napoleon’s rooms on St Helena has been offered as his killer.
White arsenic: what did the older authorities say?
- The Affair of the Poisons
- In the Paris of the 1670s, fortune-tellers such as La Voisin sold poudre de succession, “inheritance powder,” to heirs impatient for their legacy.
- Thomas Fowler
- In 1786 the Stafford physician published his solution of arsenic in potash, flavoured with lavender, for agues; Fowler’s solution was prescribed for a century and a half for everything from asthma to leukaemia, and Darwin took it.
- The Styrian arsenic-eaters
- Peasants of the Austrian Alps, reported in 1851, ate white arsenic by the grain for strength and a clear complexion, and some took doses that would kill the unaccustomed.
Sources
- Somerset, A. (2003). The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV. Book, not indexed
- Fowler, T. (1786). Medical Reports of the Effects of Arsenic in the Cure of Agues. Verified against its record · PMID 29139817
- Emsley, J. (2005). The Elements of Murder. Oxford University Press. Verified against its record · doi:10.1093/oso/9780192805997.001.0001
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the fifty-entry sample
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Sources
- 4 cited: 3 verified against its record, 1 book, not indexed. 2 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“White arsenic.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/white-arsenic.
- MLA
“White arsenic.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/white-arsenic. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
White arsenic. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/white-arsenic
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See Also
Poisoned alike: mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
White lead · Vitriol · Antimony · Verdigris · Armenian stone, pills of · Quicksilver · Aurum potabile · Passarino’s white powder · the syndrome, with all of them →
Nearby in the alphabet
White hellebore · Weapon-salve · Wax ex-votos · White willow (The bark and leaves of Salix alba) · Wax (Beeswax) · Wild bergamot · Water germander
Historical description, not medical advice.