Charles Robert Sanger: Difference between revisions
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| known_for = Discovery of Arsenic Gas in Wallpaper |
| known_for = Discovery of Arsenic Gas in Wallpaper |
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| influences = H.B. Hill, Charles Loring Jackson, Richard Anchütz |
| influences = H.B. Hill, Charles Loring Jackson, Richard Anchütz |
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| spouse = Almyra Starkweather Horswell, then Eleanor Whitney Davis. |
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Sanger's wife, Almyra died in 1905. In 1910 he remarried Eleanor Whitney Davis (1867 - 1935). Davis was the daughter of writer Andrew McFarland Davis, and the granddaughter of Massachussets Governor and US Senator, John Davis. |
Sanger's wife, Almyra died in 1905. In 1910 he remarried Eleanor Whitney Davis (1867 - 1935). Davis was the daughter of writer Andrew McFarland Davis, and the granddaughter of Massachussets Governor and US Senator, John Davis. |
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Professor Sanger was a Fellow of the Americaqn Academy of Arts and Sciences (his great grandfather Rev. Zedekiah Sanger was a charter member of the Academy in 1780) He was also a member of the American Chemical Society, of the Deutche Chemische Gesellschaft, and of the Chemical Industry of London. |
Professor Sanger was a Fellow of the Americaqn Academy of Arts and Sciences (his great grandfather Rev. Zedekiah Sanger was a charter member of the Academy in 1780) He was also a member of the American Chemical Society, of the Deutche Chemische Gesellschaft, and of the Chemical Industry of London; not to mention very active in campus governance. |
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=== Illness === |
=== Illness === |
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Charles Robert Sanger | |
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 Professor C. R. Sanger, Harvard, 1902
= | |
| Born | Boston, MA |
| Nationality | U.S. Citizen |
| Alma mater | Harvard College |
| Known for | Discovery of Arsenic Gas in Wallpaper |
| Spouse(s) | Almyra Starkweather Horswell, then Eleanor Whitney Davis. |
| Scientific career | |
| Doctoral advisor | Professor H.B. Hill |
Introduction
Charles Robert Sanger (Aug 31, 1860 – February 25, 1912) was a Chemist and Harvard University Professor, whose research centered on detecting and curing the causes of illness caused by chemicals in the home, e.g. arsenic, and a resulting mold and gas in wallpaper. “In attacking the subject he determined, with characteristic love, of truth, to place it on a secure experimental foundation by looking for arsenic in the excreta of people suffering from the disorders commonly attributed to poison from wall papers.”[1]
Harvard Background and Education
Professor Sanger was born in Boston, MA the son of George Partridge Sanger (1819-1890), a lawyer, editor, judge, first President of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., US Attorney for Massachusetts, an office he held for fifteen years (1873-1886), Sanger’s mother was Elizabeth Sherburne (Thompson) (1819-1897) of Portsmouth, New Hampshire heir to ship captains and sea merchants on all sides, including Sanger's great grandfather, Captain Thomas Thompson the first to fly the flag of the new republic into battle. Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).
Years in Exile
In 1886, Sanger was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and married Almira (Myra) Starkweather Horswell (1857-1905) in the same year. Her sister Mary Ellen had married Charles’ brother William Thompson Sanger in 1879. The Sangers had two children while living in Annapolis: Mary (1888), and Eleanor Sherburne (1891). In 1892, Sanger left Annapolis to become Eliot Professor of Chemistry at Washington University, in St. Louis. Missouri. His son Richard Sanger was born there in 1894.
Arsenic and old Wallpaper
While away from Harvard, Professor Sanger published a paper that stemmed from work he had begun with Professor Hill during his PhD. : “The Quantitative Determination of Arsenic by the Berzelius-Marsh Process, especially as Applied to the Analysis of Wallpaper and Fabrics” (American Chemical Journal) 13 [1891]:431-453.
“Sanger is best known for his work on arsenic poisoning of people exposed to arsenic-containing wallpaper, carpets and other house furnishings. Using his improved analytical methods, he showed that arsenic levels found in human tissues and excreta were directly correlated with exposure to arsenic-containing materials. The transfer of arsenic from arsenic to wallpaper to human beings was a further mystery. While removal of the wallpaper resulted in disappearance of toxic symptoms, painting over the wallpaper did not.
The source of toxicity was arsine (arsenic hydride), an extremely toxic gas formed on reduction of the nonvolatile aresenates present in wallpaper. He thus confirmed the discovery by the Italian chemist Gosio that mold growing on an arsenic-containing substrate generated an arsenical gas the arsenine-forming fungus could live even on the painted surface, its cells reaching into the underlying wallpaper.”Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).
Sanger's wife, Almyra died in 1905. In 1910 he remarried Eleanor Whitney Davis (1867 - 1935). Davis was the daughter of writer Andrew McFarland Davis, and the granddaughter of Massachussets Governor and US Senator, John Davis.
Professor Sanger was a Fellow of the Americaqn Academy of Arts and Sciences (his great grandfather Rev. Zedekiah Sanger was a charter member of the Academy in 1780) He was also a member of the American Chemical Society, of the Deutche Chemische Gesellschaft, and of the Chemical Industry of London; not to mention very active in campus governance.
Illness
The last years of Professor Sanger's life were plagued with an undiagnosed illness--thought alternatively to be related to a nervous cause, and an unknown heart condition. He did everything
possible to alleviae it, including making a trip to Europe which was cut off after six months, as his symptoms were getting worse. "At times it had the symptoms and agonizing pain of angina pectoris; at others, it seemed to be an acute nervous dyspepsia; in the end it was shown to be an organic disease of the heart." Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).
Professor Sanger died at home in Cambridge, on February 25, 1912. Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).
<ref=“Report of the secretary of the class of 1881 of Harvard college, Issue7, obit for Charles Robert Sanger” http://books.google.com/books?id=oihOAAAAMAAJ&dq=charles+robert+sanger&source=gbs_navlinks_s]</ref> the heir to ship captains and sea merchants on all sides, including her grandfather Captain Thomas Thompson the first to fly the flag of the new republic into battle. Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).
<ref=“Charles H. Fuchsman. Sanger, Charles Robert; American National Biography On Line, 2000.” [1]</ref> [1] <ref=“Report of the secretary of the class of 1881 of Harvard college, Issue7, obit for Charles Robert Sanger” http://books.google.com/books?id=oihOAAAAMAAJ&dq=charles+robert+sanger&source=gbs_navlinks_s]</ref>
- ^ a b c {http://books.google.com/books?id=9gMDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA813&lpg=PA813&dq=charles+robert+sanger+american+academy+of+arts+and+sciences&source=bl&ots=jumo6yGq9s&sig=s7_po-O1Jr6JFANu9P_8yDX2vpc&hl=en&ei=EqBhTeOVG4GdlgfIjLWcDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=charles%20robert%20sanger%20american%20academy%20of%20arts%20and%20sciences&f=false] Cite error: The named reference "Charles Robert Sanger, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences XLVIII, From May 1912, May 1913, by C. L. Jackson" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).