Why? I said I DIDN'T eat the things. I threw them straight out, despite there being no visible signs of white phosphorus present, I could smell it nearby or on the candy and that was more than enough, way, way more than enough to have them thrown out on the merest suspicion. A human lethal dose is between 40-50mg of white phosphorus, by mouth (there were a lot of human poisonings by it back in the days when it was used on match heads (these days red phosphorus, which itself is not toxic, is used for safety matches, and its on the striker strip not the heads. Some desperate meth cooks actually buy big multipacks of match books for the red P from the strikers and clean out all the abrasive and glue and stuff. Thankfully, for any experiments I want to do that use either phosphorus or reagents made from it.
I have 2kg of ACS-grade red phosphorus, of excellent quality:) (well a bit less than 2kg now, since I've put some to various uses since first obtaining it. That much ought to last me for an awful, awful long time and a hell of a lot of experiments and syntheses; either directly, or indirectly for making other phosphorus-based reagents, its a very versatile and useful element, its compounds are probably more useful than the element and its allotropes, but there are plenty very useful reagents that can be made from it, substituted phosphines especially, such as triphenylphosphine can act as ligands forming complexes with metals, theres a very rich variety of organometallic catalysts based on phosphine chemistry, many of them, newer ones especially, being capable of stereochemical selectivity and production of chiral products from achiral precursors, or retaining the same chirality.
plus a smaller amount of white phosphorus made by heating the red allotrope in an evacuated, nonmetallic container (most or at least a great many metals form phosphides, which produce the deadly phosphine gas if the phosphide gets wet or is exposed to acid. Elemental P and strong base also produce PH3. Its the phosphorus analog of ammonia, NH3, where phosphorus replaces nitrogen, usually also formed along with diphosphine, P2H6, which is pyrophoric and ignites the moment it contacts oxygen in the air (which given how poisonous PH3 is, is not a bad thing, IIRC it only takes a small bubble of phosphine coming out of water from its source to kill you stone dead, the next period down, the element arsenic forms something similar, arsine, which is even more toxic, both smell pretty awful too, fishy, garlicky, very rotten-putrid fish or shellfish kind of smell, with PH3 and also kinda metallic in the case of arsine (it can be smelled without dying by striking together pieces of the mineral arsenical pyrites, which generates tiny, tiny quantities of AsH3) Definitely something to avoid forming at all costs in the lab. Although arsine is of use (whilst its decomposed immediately as its formed without ever being able to escape into the atmosphere) in forensic detection of arsenic, in the Marsh test, invented by one James Marsh, back in the day when, owing to the fairly generic and nonspecific symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning, As, usually as its compounds rather than arsenic metal (its actually a semimetal, like tellurium, germanium, silicon, one of the selenium allotropes, and in its semimetallic form, fractures rather than bends) historically speaking was such a popular poison with those who wanted somebody dead, that it gained the nickname 'inheritance powder'
But the Marsh test was invented in the early 1800s, and involved treatment of a sample (including of human remains, its extremely sensitive and can detect a mere 20 micrograms of arsenic, the test relies on first, acidification of a sample containing trivalent arsenic, or reduction/oxidation of other oxidation states of As to As (III) using nitric acid (sulfuric can also be used) and (arsenic-free) zinc, the combination produces arsine gas, along with hydrogen, which sweeps along the traces of arsine formed by the zinc-acid reduction of As (III) to arsine gas, through the generating flask, plugged with a two-holed stopper, one outlet of which is connected to a long-stemmed glass tube to add acid, and of course, seal with a syringe (at least you'd do it that way nowadays, to prevent any escaping) through which the acid is introduced, in the flask is the sample to be tested, which can include suspect human flesh from a dead body, and zinc metal granules or filings etc. and the outlet goes into a U-tube filled with water to allow the arsine to bubble through, and then through a glass tube, heated around the middle with a bunsen burner or other flame source, the water filled tube prevents a flame flashback through the tube, which would ignite the hydrogen in the production flask with the test sample, potentially blasting nitric acid and arsenical fumes everywhere along with a hail of glass shards, the water serves to arrest any flame that backwashes before it can get there, whilst permitting the flow of gas, the flame decomposes the formed AsH3 and is directed onto a cold surface, where if the test is positive, a mirror-like shiny deposit of metallic arsenic forms.
Antimony will give a false positive result, as will bismuth owing to formation of the corresponding hydrides, stibine and bismuthine, both of which aren't particularly stable but can exist transiently, long enough to be burnt and form a similar mirror, but they can be distinguished from each other by the fact that a deposit of antimony, another metalloid (semi-metal) will not dissolve in concentrated hypochlorite (bleach) whereas arsenic will do, ammonium polysulfide solution will dissolve antimony but not arsenic, whilst a deposit of bismuth (which is, unlike arsenic, and antimony, not particularly a toxic element, generally speaking, although bismuthine is extremely toxic, like phosphine, arsine and stibine, but its not stable, less so than stibine, decomposing on its own even below 0 'C, a bismuth mirror will not be destroyed by either hypochlorite or ammonium polysulfides) so the marsh test allows not only for qualitative, but if one possesses the means to weigh, or can titrate for arsenical compounds, antimony derivatives or bismuth compounds, the quantity present in a given sample size can be derived, and thus give the person performing the test knowledge of the quantity present.
Which in those days would have been important, because back then (and although known to be toxic, as late as at least the late 1700s, mercury, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth were all used in medicine, as was lead. Still being used widely in fact as late as the very end 1700s, going from some old physician's manuals I have in my library, so not all instances or quantities found in a person would necessarily mean that they were poisoned. The Marsh test in fact, was the very first piece of forensic chemistry ever to be admitted in court successfully) I've never actually done it myself, but then again I don't really have much reason to go poking around in dead people and suspecting murder by means of arsenic
And I'm certainly not about to ever produce arsine deliberately in any other context. Sod that. I prefer staying alive
