Charles Robert Sanger

Charles Robert Sanger
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 ChemistChemist 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.”

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. The family moved to Cambridge where, Charles attended the Cambridge High School before beginning at Harvard in 1877.

In addition to a father whose A.B. and LL.B both came from Harvard--who placed second in his class, ’40, and who was a Latin tutor at Harvard for two years after his graduation, Sanger had three elder brothers who attended Harvard before him: John White ’70, William Thompson ’71, and George Partridge, ’74. In addition his great grandfather Rev. Zedekiah was class of 1771, and his grandfather Doctor Ralph was 1808 (in 1857 Harvard awarded him an honorary of Doctor of Divinity). His only son Richard was to graduate in the Harvard Class of 1915.

Professor Sanger certainly equaled them, with a A.B. upon graduation in 1881, and his first A.M. (cum laude) in 1882, he travelled abroad to Germany for a year attending University in Munich and Bonn, and studying under famous organic chemist Richard Anchütz. He returned to Harvard to receive his second A.M., and his PhD. after which he became an assistant in the Harvard Chemistry department, first working with Professor H. B. Hill who “was his Chemical father.”

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 wallpape

Return to Cambridge

Professor Sanger returned to Harvard in 1899, as assistant professor and in charge of the large Chemistry 3 course developed by H.B. Hill who by this time was ailing, and was made full Professor and Directory of the Chemistry Laboratory at Harvard when Professor Hill died in 1903.

“As a teacher he was somewhat austere; all his students were expected to live fully up to his own standard, and he always retained some touch of the Naval discipline. In particular research with him was no easy matter—the same accuracy, the same thoroughness, the same limitless patience, that he showed in his own work he demanded of his students, but, as they saw he required nothing from them, which he did not exact from himself in even greater measure, they worked with enthusiasm, and felt for him an affection perhaps even deeper and stronger, than would have been inspired by an easier teacher.”

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 American 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."

Professor Sanger died at home in Cambridge, on February 25, 1912. He is buried in the family plot at Mt. Auburn Cemetary in Cambridge, MA.

Publications

(an incomplete list of Professor Sanger's work)

Ueber substituirte Brenzschleimsäuren. With Henry B. Hill. Ann Chem. Pharm 232, 43 (1885)

The Quantitative Determination of Arsenic by the Berzelius-Marsh Process, especially as applied to the analysis of Wall Papers and Fabrics. Proc. American Aca., 26, 24 (1891).

The Chemical Analysis of three Guns at the U.S Naval Academy captured in Corea, by Rear Admiral John Rodgers, U.S.N. Proc. U. S. Naval Institute, 19, 53, (1892).

On the formation of volatile Compounds of Arsenic from Arsenical Wall Papers.. Proc. Amer. Academy 29, 112. (1894)

On Chronical Arsenical Poisoning from Wall Papers and Fabrics, Proc Amer Academy 29, 148 (1894) Laboratory Experiments in General Chemistry, St. Louis, Published by the Author, St. Louis, (1896).

A Short Course of Experiments in General Chemistry, with notes on Qualitative Analysis. Published by the Author, St. Louis, (1896).

References

Charles Robert Sanger, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences XLVIII, From May 1912, May 1913, by C. L. Jackson

Report of the Secretary of the class of 1881 of Harvard college, Issue 7, obit for Charles Robert Sanger.

Who Was Who in America – Volume 1, 1897-1942

Charles H. Fuchsman. “Sanger, Charles Robert”; American National Biography On Line, 2000.

“Charles Robert Sanger,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences XLVIII, From May 1912, May 1913, by C. L. Jackson

“Harvard Crimson, Obituary, Charles Robert Sanger, “ Feb 26, 1912

"New York Times, Obituary, Charles Robert Sanger,” Feb 26 1912"

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Charter Members List, 1780.