1858 Bradford sweets poisoning

Common card · No. 265604

In 1858 a batch of sweets in Bradford, England, was accidentally adulterated with poisonous arsenic trioxide. About five pounds (two kilograms) of sweets were sold to the public, leading to around 20 deaths and over 200 people suffering arsenic poisoning. The adulteration of food had been practised in Britain since before the Middle Ages, but in the nineteenth century, with increasing urbanisation and the rise in shop-purchased food, adulterants became a growing problem. With the cost of sugar high, replacing it with substitutes was common. For the sweets produced in Bradford, the confectioner was supposed to purchase powdered gypsum, but a mistake at the wholesale chemist meant arsenic was purchased instead. Three men were arrested—the chemist who sold the arsenic, his assistant and the sweet maker—but all three were acquitted after the judge decided it was all accidental and there was no case for any of them to answer. The deaths led to the Adulteration of Food or Drink Act 1860, although...

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