Wear Gloves When You Handle This Book

SHADOWS FROM THE WALLS OF DEATH, printed in 1874 is a book that might kill you. It contains just under a hundred wallpaper samples, each of which is saturated with potentially dangerous levels of arsenic. Near the end of the 19th century, the American Medical Association
estimated that as much as 65 percent of all wallpaper in the United States contained arsenic.
Of the original 100 copies of the book, only four remain. Michigan State University’s copy rests on a shelf in the library’s Special Collections division. Each page is individually encapsulated in plastic so that researchers and the curious can handle it without fear.

More: Atlas Obscura