Citation

Blok D, Ambrose L, Ouellette L, Seif E, Riley B, Judge B, Ziegler A, Jones J. Am. J. Emerg. Med. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Spectrum Health - Michigan State University Emergency Medicine Residency Program, Grand Rapids, MI, United States; Spectrum Health Hospitals Department of Emergency Medicine, Grand Rapids, MI, United States; Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine, Grand Rapids, MI, United States. Electronic address: Jeffrey.Jones@spectrumhealth.org.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ajem.2019.09.024

PMID

31862190

Abstract

During the 19th century, many new poisonous substances came onto the market to aid in controlling undesirable plant life and pests, for use as cleaning agents, and for medicinal purposes. Poison bottles were often made with distinctive coloring and/or patterns or marked with certain raised shapes in order to warn individuals of the contents and to make adults aware of the necessity to keep them away from children. While this warning was necessary, it wasn’t until the 1930s that medical and other professionals realized these attributes actually made the bottles more attractive to children, thus resulting in the adoption of utilizing less embellished, clear bottles with safer, child resistant lids. The older bottles with unique markings and colors make these antique items desirable to modern day collectors. There are forums and websites that make these bottles easily accessible to the public and it has been previously found that these poisonous product containers are readily available. Many of these bottles still hold their original contents. The common practice of selling full or partially full poison bottles places people at risk for serious poisonings following unintentional or intentional exposures. Our objective was to quantify the wide variety of dangerous poisons for sale to the general public on a popular online auction Web site.

Language: en