Shadows from the Walls of Death

{{Short description|Book containing dangerously toxic substances}}{{Infobox book

| name = Shadows from the Walls of Death

| image = Shadows from the Walls of Death title page.jpg

| image_size =

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| caption = The frontispiece of the book Shadows from the Walls of Death

| author = Dr. Robert C. Kedzie

| country = United States of America

| language = English

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| pub_date = 1874

| media_type = Print

| pages = 100

}}

Shadows from the Walls of Death: Facts and Inferences Prefacing a Book of Specimens of Arsenical Wall Papers is an 1874 book by Dr. Robert C. Kedzie (1823–1902) of Michigan.{{Cite web|title=Shadows from the walls of death|url=https://search.lib.umich.edu/catalog/Record/001577638|access-date=2021-06-02|website=search.lib.umich.edu}}

The book warns of the dangers of then commonly used arsenic-pigmented wallpaper. The book contains 86 samples of said wallpaper. Due to the dangerous amount of arsenic in the work, only five of the original 100 copies have survived. Most copies were destroyed by the recipient libraries. The extant copies are only handled using special safety precautions.{{cite web |url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/shadows-from-the-walls-of-death-book |title=How a Library Handles a Rare and Deadly Book of Wallpaper Samples |last=Zawacki |first=Alexander J. |work=Atlas Obscura |date=2018-01-23 |accessdate=2018-06-16 }} {{As of|2021}}, the remaining copies were held at Harvard University Medical School, the U.S. National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland, and the university libraries of Michigan State University and the University of Michigan.{{Cite book|last1=Kedzie|first1=R. C|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1194639611|title="Shadows from the walls of death": facts and inferences prefacing a book of specimens of arsenical wall papers|last2=Baker|first2=Henry B|last3=Michigan|last4=State Board of Health|last5=W.S. George & Co|date=1874|language=English|oclc=1194639611}} The copy in the National Library of Medicine has been digitized and is freely available.

File:Shadows from the walls of death page.jpg