Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre, pour ce que rire est le propre de l’homme
“It’s better to write about laughter than tears, because laughter is what humans do”
Rabelais, Gargantua
(Well there might be a few serious bits)
No, I don’t mean insect killer or Rentokil fluid put there by the curators. Though of course those may be there too. Woodworm in the Lord Mayor’s Chair, moths in the 18th century sampler, beetles crunching that trendy piece of artwork made entirely from dried peas and lentils glued to a piece of cardboard, all need to be seen to. No, I mean poisonous, or otherwise hazardous, museum objects.
One day a member of the public brought in two World War II gas masks to a museum down south. Two staff members, who had not met these before, were about to try them on, when somebody (me actually) noticed and stopped them just in time. World War II gas masks usually contain asbestos, which is now recognised as a dangerous carcinogen. They either have to be sent away for decontamination by experts before you use them in your wartime handling sessions for schools, or they have to be sealed in airtight plastic with big red hazard warnings all over them and kept in the store.
But that is only the start. Do you remember the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland? This is thought to be a reference to the mercury poisoning suffered by makers of men’s hats in the 18th and 19th centuries, when mercurous nitrate was used in the process of making felt for hats. If your collection has any Victorian top hats in it, you need to be careful handling them.
I once worked in a museum that had a fine collection of old stuffed birds. Museum curators have been known to become ill from handling such specimens, as arsenic was once widely used in taxidermy. Surgical gloves on, please.
And of course the collection may contain old watches with radium dials, or even geological samples which are mildly radioactive. Even the store itself may have radon leaking out of the walls at levels which are hazardous to humans. This I have also met.
There are more things to beware of in a museum store than falling off a stepladder because you have forgotten your ladder training, or hurting your back lifting boxes because you skipped your manual handling course. Still, look on the bright side. If you have a few boxes of Victorian matches, they may spontaneously combust and burn the whole store down, thus solving all the problems!
