CHAPTER 334: CHAPTER 330 GREEN POISON

"Miss, what’s the matter? Don’t you like the color of the wallpaper?" The old butler, who rushed over after hearing the news, looked at the servant dolls peeling off the wallpaper from the wall under Perfikot’s orders, showing a puzzled expression, not knowing what was wrong with his lady.

On the other hand, Eldest Princess Annie also showed confusion, but she had no intention of stopping Perfikot.

This is her lord’s mansion, not to mention just the wallpaper, even if she wanted to dismantle the place now, it would be entirely up to her whim.

The only thing that concerned Eldest Princess Annie perhaps was why Perfikot was doing this.

Faced with the confused looks from the two, Perfikot explained, "This wallpaper is poisonous because its color is blended using an arsenic compound, known as copper arsenite.

When heated, it releases highly toxic fumes; the arsenic evaporated from every fifteen square centimeters is enough to kill two adults! Using it as wallpaper is practically saying your life is too long."

The reason Perfikot could know these things, aside from memories from her original world, is because she had just used the Eye of Omniscience to inspect the wallpaper she had taken down.

Originally, she had suspicions due to the wallpaper’s bright and vibrant green, and the appraisal results from the Eye of Omniscience provided her with solid evidence.

The seemingly beautiful green wallpaper in front of her was precisely the highly toxic color popular in the eighteenth century of the original world—arsenic green.

Few people know that in ancient times, without synthetic pigments, various colors relied entirely on natural minerals or plant juices, such as the famous Tyrian purple obtained from shellfish secretions, which was an extremely precious natural dye.

Various minerals were similarly favored by ancient artists, such as natural minerals ground into powder for coating and decoration.

Relatively simple would be some sandstones, and more precious might be various gems.

Among them, lead white is certainly worth mentioning, both for its long history and its harmfulness.

In the original world, humans began using lead to create white pigment as early as the fourth century BC, and the craft of using this color persisted in the proliferations and heritages of many cultures for a long time, until it was banned in the 1970s.

Even until the 19th century, lead white was the only choice for white oil paint and tempera pigments, and artists at the time would even personally grind lead blocks into finely powdered form for quality white.

During this process, they would inhale a large amount of lead dust, leading to lead poisoning.

Its primary symptoms included abdominal cramping, muscle atrophy, depression, coughing, and blindness.

However, the texture, opacity, and warm tones of lead white made it difficult for painters at the time to give up this beautiful color, as there was no pigment that could match the gloss of lead white, so it continued to be used until the 1970s.

Even in both Europe and Asia at the time, there was a habit of applying lead powder on the face for whitening.

When Perfikot had just traveled over, she found such cosmetic lead powder on her dressing table, and it truly shocked her, thinking someone might be trying to harm her.

This was also one of the reasons she dismissed all her servant dolls at the time, as she didn’t want to die from the so-called "common sense" and "habits" of this era.

She had not expected that even being far from the Empire’s mainland, she would still encounter such blood-boiling events.

If she hadn’t noticed the unnaturalness of the green wallpaper on the wall, she might have fallen victim, suffering arsenic poisoning due to excessive arsenic inhalation during this winter, ending up like Napoleon.

Unlike the long history of lead white, arsenic green is a technology that emerged with the development of chemical disciplines after humans entered the industrial era.

Before this, green was a color that, while not difficult to obtain, was not easy to preserve, often fading or losing its original luster.

Hence, green remained a fairly expensive color before the Industrial Revolution, used only by nobles, merchants, or individuals of middle class and above.

In the original world, an 18th-century Swedish chemist discovered that dyes made from copper arsenite were bright and beautiful and extremely cost-effective, so upon its invention, it saw widespread use.

From clothes and toys to fabrics, wallpaper, and painting pigments, almost every place requiring green began using this dye.

At the time, another similar dye called Paris green was even invented, becoming popular due to France’s fashionable attribute.

Ironically, when the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented arsenic green, he already knew of the toxic volatility of arsenic.

But he deliberately concealed this fact to keep his patent secret, resulting in the widespread use of arsenic green leading to deaths from arsenic poisoning for those who used or came into contact with it at the time.

This naturally included the famous French Emperor Napoleon, as well as many ordinary people who could access arsenic green.

Thinking of this, Perfikot looked at Eldest Princess Annie, noticing that she was wearing a green dress today, her eyes instantly sharpening, and she rushed to her side to inspect her dress with the Eye of Omniscience.

As expected, Perfikot hurriedly said to Eldest Princess Annie, "Aunt Annie, quickly take off this dress; all clothes made with this green dye are poisonous. Wearing them can take the lives of you and those around you at any moment.

Believe me, the arsenic evaporated from a dress like this is already enough to kill six people.

Compared to it, poisoning, assassination, and attacks are inefficient."

Upon hearing Perfikot’s words, Eldest Princess Annie showed no doubt, quickly looking towards the old butler beside her.

Foster immediately spoke solemnly, "Please, Princess, proceed to the dressing room; I will promptly prepare clean and safe clothing for you."

"Much appreciated!" Eldest Princess Annie exhaled a long breath, yet maintained her composure, even having the mood to joke with Perfikot, "Too bad I went out of my way to wear a dress today; if I’d known, I’d have just worn my uniform all along. At least military uniforms won’t have this problem, as they are red."

After saying this, Eldest Princess Annie, under the guidance of the old butler, headed towards the wardrobe of the lord’s mansion, planning to remove the dress there.

Meanwhile, Perfikot ordered the servant dolls to quickly clean off all the wallpaper on the wall and find a place to store them properly until she personally dealt with them.

These things can’t be simply set on fire, as doing so would equate to poisoning.

"Beifa, help me send a telegram to the Imperial Center, requesting a complete ban on using this color dye, and prohibiting anyone from using copper arsenite as a dye raw material." Perfikot instructed Beifa beside her, while also planning to ban all this in the Northern Territory first.