The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
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- ISBN13: 9781594202438
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Deborah Blum follows New York City’s first forensic scientists to learn a fascinating Jazz Age tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder.
Deborah Blum, writing with the high style and skill for suspense that is characteristic of the very best mystery fiction, shares the untold tale of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. In The Poisoner’s Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists started their trailblazing compound detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an simple path to the perfect crime.
Drama unfolds case by case as the heroes of The Poisoner’s Handbook-chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler-investigate a family tree mysteriously stricken bald, Barnum and Bailey’s Legendary Blue Man, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler work with a creativity that rivals that of the most imaginative murderer, making revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. Yet in the tough game of toxins, even science can’t permanently be trusted, as proven when one of Gettler’s experiments erroneously sets free a suburban housewife later nicknamed “America’s Lucretia Borgia” to continue her disreputable work.
From the vantage of Norris and Gettler’s laboratory in the infamous Bellevue Hospital it becomes clear that killers aren’t the only toxic threat to New Yorkers. Modern life has made a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every confront. Automobiles choke the city streets with carbon monoxide; potent compounds, such as morphine, can be establish on store shelves in products ranging from pesticides to cosmetics. Prohibition incites a chemist’s war between bootleggers and government chemists while in Gotham’s crowded speakeasies each round of cocktails becomes a game of Russian roulette. Norris and Gettler triumph over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice during a remarkably deadly time. A beguiling concoction that is equal parts right crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner’s Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten New York.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Leader Deborah Blum’s Top Ten Poisons
On a recent radio show, I heard myself telling the host “And carbon monoxide is such a excellent poison.” We both ongoing laughing–there’s just something about a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist waxing enthusiastic about something so lethal. But then he became curious–“Why?” he questioned. “Why do you like it so much?”
These days, as I travel the country talking about The Poisoner’s Handbook, I’m frequently questioned that question or variations on it. What’s your favorite poison? What’s the perfect poison? The answer to the latter is that it doesn’t exist–except in the plots of crime novels.
But in reality, poisons really are fascinatingly wicked compound compounds and many of them have fascinating histories as well. Just between us, then, here’s a list of my personal favorites.
1. Carbon Monoxide (really)–It’s so perfectly simple (just two atoms–one of carbon, one of oxygen) and so amazingly well-organized a killer. There’s a tale I tell in the book about a murder syndicate trying to kill an amazingly resilient victim. They try everything from serving him poison alcohol to running over him with a car. But in the end, it’s carbon monoxide that does him in.
2. Arsenic–This used to be the murderer’s poison of poisons, so commonly used in the early 19th century that it was nicknamed “the inheritance powder”. It’s also the first poison that forensic scientists really figured out how to detect in a corpse. And it stays in the body for centuries, which is why we keep digging up historic facts like Napoleon or U.S. President Zachary Taylor to check their remains for poison.
3. Radium–I like the fact that this rare radioactive element used to be considered excellent for your health. It was mixed into medicines, face creams, health drinks in the 1920s. People thought of it like a tiny glowing sun that would give them its power. Boy, were they incorrect. The two scientists in my book, Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler, proved in 1928 that the bones of people exposed to radium became radioactive–and stayed that way for years.
4. Nicotine–This was the first plant poison that scientists learned to detect in a human body. Just an incredible case in which a French aristocrat and her spouse chose to kill her brother for money. They really stewed up tobacco leaves in a barn to brew a nicotine potion. And their amateur compound experiments inspired a very determined professional chemist to hunt them down.
5. Chloroform–Developed for surgical anesthesia in the 19th century, this rapidly became a favorite tool of home invasion robbers. If you read newspapers around the turn of the 20th century, they’re full of accounts of people who answered a knock on the door, only to be knocked out by a chloroform soaked rag. One woman woke up to find her hair shaved off–undoubtedly sold for the lucrative wig trade.
6. Mercury–In its pure state, mercury appears as a bright silver liquid, which scatters into shiny droplets when touched. No marvel it’s nicknamed quicksilver. People used to drink it as a medicine more than 100 years ago. No, they didn’t drop dead. Persons gray balls just slid right through them. Mercury is much more poisonous if it’s mixed with additional chemicals and can be absorbed by the body directly. That’s why methylmercury in fish turns out to be so risky a contaminant.
7. Cyanide–One of the most legendary of the homicidal poisons and–in my opinion–not a particularly excellent choice. Yes, it’s amazingly lethal–a teaspoon of the pure stuff can kill in a few minutes. But it’s a violent and obvious death. In early March, in fact, an Ohio doctor was convicted of murder for putting cyanide in his wife’s vitamin supplements.
8. Aconite–A heart-stoppingly deadly natural poison. It forms in ornamental plants that include the blue-flowering monkshood. The very ancient Greeks called it “the queen of poisons” and considered it so evil that they believed that it derived from the saliva of Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates of hell.
9. Silver–Swallowing silver nitrate probably won’t kill you but if you do it long enough it will turn you blue. One of my favorite tales (involving a silver bullet) concerns the Legendary Blue Man of Barnum and Bailey’s Circus who was analyzed by one of the heroes of my book, Alexander Gettler.
10. Thallium–Agatha Christie place this poison at the heart of one of her creepiest mysteries, The Pale Horse, and I looked at it terms of a murdered family tree in real life. An element learned in the 19th century, it’s a perfect homicidal poison–tasteless and odorless–except for one obvious giveaway–the victim’s hair falls out as a result of the poisoning!
Now that I’ve written this list, I realize I could probably name ten more. But I don’t want to scare you.
–Deborah Blum
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After reading the review for “The Poisoner’s Handbook” I was intrigued and keen to read it. I like history, but have a hard time reading non-fiction for leisure unless it’s written energetically with a narrative spin (like “Economic Hitman”, “In Cold Blood”, “Devil in the White City”, etc.) I thought “Poisoner’s Handbook” would be a fantastic read; murders by poison in the 1920s sounded like an intriguing and exciting theme. BUT. Somehow the leader made it dull. And the information is arranged poorly. The writing is not fantastic; I couldn’t tell if they were trying to infuse suspense into events that were really not very exciting, or if they were really enthusiastic about the tale and their research, but just lacked storytelling and/or writing talent. I have a feeling that a different leader could take the same theme matter and write a fantastic book. But this one is certainly a pass.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I loved this book! Each chapter chronicles a poison,cases where it was learned ,effects,
the NY medical examiner’s office efforts to thwart further poisoner’s attempts. What heroes!
The writing flows,is appealing lacking being extremely technical or overly simplistic and educates while it entertains. The insights into Prohibition were fascinating.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
There’s been an explosion of interest in the profession of medical examiner and crime scene investigation. With the CSI shows, the Law and Order franchise, NCIS, and Cold Case among additional TV series, people have become fascinated by the art and science of forensic pathology.
_The Poisoner’s Handbook_ is a wonderfully written and truly appealing look at how the New York City Medical Examiners practically made the discipline of forensic pathology through the identification of poisons that caused deaths, and the deaths caused by methyl alcohol during Prohibition.
The book read more like a novel than a treatise, although it was obvious that the erudition was impeccable.
If you have any interest in forensic pathology, or the history of science you’ll be enthralled, repelled, and ensorcelled by this book. You will really like it.
I read it in one sitting, all night. I don’t regret the lack of sleep.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The POISONER’S HANDBOOK: MURDER and the BIRTH OF FORENSIC MEDICINE IN JAZZ AGE NEW YORK is a very quick read. Especially appealing for anyone interested in History of New York Forensic Medicine and politics of the 1920’s and 1930’s….
I heard the leader on COAST TO COAST AM radio and she made history sound so appealing. And since so much of Forensic Medicine in the 1920’s has led us to the new developments of all medicine and alchol abuse, I establish it to be a very appealing quick read, told in a manner that reminds you of sitting down with a forerunner telling the history of their time, but educational at the same time.
Especially appealing if your a child that was treated with some “handed down” medicinal cures, such as mercuracome for any cut, Lemon juice, honey, hot water with a “shot” of whiskey for a cold or stuffed up nose,chicken noodle soup, or played with mercury as a child.
One word of caution…perhaps not a book you want to place the paper take in on, if your around relatives who might become concerned with the title of the book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The Poisoners Handbook is not just a history of forensic medicine/science in the USA but a catalog of regulatory failure concerning the quality of the food and, particularly, drink. The wowsers (or moralists), who installed Prohibition, killed more people through bootleg liquor than they ever saved through enforced abstinence. Curiously this issue is a hot topic in Europe and Australia today with the current epidemic of binge drinking and its consequent anti-social behaviour by the young prompting the politicians to chat about how to bring this under control. Only by reading this book did I realise how simple it was to dispose of rivals (for either like or property) nearly a century ago. Professor Blum discusses not just the poisons used to attack individuals but also manufacturing chemicals such as radium and tetra-ethyllead (the anti-knock additive for gasoline which was reliable for the deaths of many workers involved in manufacture of radium phosphors and anti-knock. One is staggered how the industry concerned held out against change despite overwhelming evidence that manufacturing exposure was reliable. I have changed my perspective on Thomas Midgley.
It’s not clear to me that the explanations of the compound structure of the various poisons deployed adds anything for the average reader. There are some errors, the most egregious (if you’re a prospective poisoner) being when 50 mg of cyanide is converted to US units as nearly 2 ounces when it is only one thousandth of that amount.
I momentously loved the book.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5