You are slowly being poisoned by arsenic

A medical worker wares a full protective suit at the Beijing Emergency Centre April 30, 2003 in Beijing, China. (Getty Images)

It's a poison most associated with vengeful Victorian housemaids and spurned lovers, but as The Huffington Post reports today, arsenic has so many uses in the modern world that you may well be feeling the ill-effects of the substance without even knowing it.

Today arsenic might be "fed to poultry, applied to crops, leached from pressure-treated wood, puffed into the air by coal-fired power plants and drilled free from bedrock", writes Lynne Peoples.

The health consequences include cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Small children and pregnant women are most susceptible to the effects of small doses.