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A group of researchers discovered three books, written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, containing arsenic, an extremely toxic chemical element, in a library in Denmark
The novel "The name of the rose" , written by Umberto Eco, tells how Fray Guillermo de Baskerville, a Franciscan monk, and inseparable Adso follower of Melk, visit a Benedictine abbey in northern Italy to clarify the death of a young monk. Shortly after, some of the comrades die.
They all had one thing in common: they had read "The poetics of Aristotle".
From fiction to reality, a group of researchers found, in the library of the University of Southern Denmark, three ancient books with a high concentration of arsenic on the covers. The poison in the books, signed by Polydorus Vergilius, Johannes Dubravius and Georg Maior, was detected after performing a series of X-ray fluorescence assays, according to the Spanish newspaper El País.
Three copies because in the past it was discovered that the covers contained fragments of medieval manuscripts, such as copies of Roman law and canon law. "European bookbinders of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries recycled old rolls," they explained in The Conversation
. When they were trying to identify the texts, they realized that it was impossible because of a thick layer of green paint that obscured the text. writing manuscripts. The analysis of this mixture revealed that it was arsenic, one of the most toxic chemical elements in the world, whose exposure can lead to poisoning, to development of cancer and even to death.
Before the adverse health effects presented arsenic, it was common to find it in objects, such as clothing, paintings or books. "It is not strange that this substance appears in old materials because it was used as a dye," said Arsenio Sánchez, conservator of the National Library of Spain, in El Pais. "In fact, we know that many of the materials used for fixation were toxic," he continues.
Jakob Povl Holck, one of the investigators, explains that everything seems to indicate that the "arsenic" was applied with the intention of killing rodents or possible insects "that would approach the specimens. Sánchez considered that the substance would have been used to unify the cover since it was constructed from fragments of parchments.
After the discovery, the three volumes were stored in cardboard boxes in a safe place. Although they did not rule out the possibility of other poisoned books, the group of scientists claimed that they no longer found them during the analyzes.
The researchers plan to scan the books to minimize exposure to arsenic. , id) {
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