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The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison |
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Sales Rank: 108423
Available from Amazon |
$13.57 |
Was Napoleon killed by the arsenic in his wallpaper? How did Rasputin survive cyanide poisoning? Which chemicals in our environment pose the biggest threat to our health today? In The Elements of Murder, John Emsley answers these questions and offers a fascinating account of five of the most toxic elements--arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury, and thallium--describing their lethal chemical properties and highlighting their use in some of the most famous murder cases in history.
In this exciting book, we meet a who's who of heartless murderers. Mary Ann Cotton, who used arsenic to murder her mother, three husbands, a lover, eight of her own children, and seven step children; Michael Swango, who may have killed as many as 60 of his patients and several of his colleagues during the 20 years he practiced as a doctor and paramedic; and even Saddam Hussein, who used thallium sulfate to poison his political rivals. Emsley also shows which toxic elements may have been behind the madness of King George III, the delusions of Isaac Newton, and the strange death of King Charles II. In addition, the book examines many modern day environmental catastrophes, including accidental mass poisonings from lead and arsenic, and the Minamata Bay disaster in Japan.
Written by a leading science writer, famous for his knowledge of the elements and their curious and colorful histories, The Elements of Murder offers an enticing combination of true crime tales and curious science that adds up to an addictive read.
The poisonous elements spotlighted in this book--mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead, and thallium--also served as medications for most of recorded history. It is amazing what people would concoct and swallow to cure constipation, including mercury laxatives and antimony `perpetual pills' that passed through the gut and irritated it into expelling its contents. These pills could be washed off and recycled. In fact, "there are reports that such pills were highly effective and passed from generation to generation."
"The Elements of Murder" makes it clear that it was sometimes impossible to determine whether a victim was poisoned by his enemies or his doctors.
The author, John Emsley is both a chemist and an award-winning science writer. He chronicles the characteristics of each element with a magisterial British presence that eludes many American science writers, who sometimes place a heavy reliance on adjectives. Emsley goes for the telling anecdote. The insanity of men slowly poisoned by lead is revealed in a list of items they stored in a lifeboat: "button polish, silk handkerchiefs, curtain rods, and a portable writing desk." The largest mass poisoning by arsenic was actually funded by UNICEF in an effort to provide clean drinking water to the people of West Bengal, India and Bangladesh.
Although the stories of individual poisoners and their victims are interesting, the author's investigations into the wholesale slaughter of people by insidious, omnipresent elements in their environment are equally compelling. Were both the Roman AND British Empires brought low by lead?
Read "The Elements of Murder" and decide for yourself.
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