The Poisoner's Handbook

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York [Kindle Edition]

Author: Deborah Blum | Language: English | ISBN: B004P1JDM6 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
Download The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link ***PBS's AMERICAN EXPERIENCE released a film based on The Poisoner's Handbook in January 2014***



Equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is "a vicious, page-turning story that reads more like Raymond Chandler than Madame Curie" (The New York Observer)



A fascinating Jazz Age tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten era. In early twentieth-century New York, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Science had no place in the Tammany Hall-controlled coroner's office, and corruption ran rampant. However, with the appointment of chief medical examiner Charles Norris in 1918, the poison game changed forever. Together with toxicologist Alexander Gettler, the duo set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work, triumphing over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice.
Books with free ebook downloads available The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

• File Size: 573 KB
• Print Length: 334 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 014311882X
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (January 25, 2011)
• Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004P1JDM6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
  Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,456 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Pharmacology > Toxicology
  • #6 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Specialties > Pathology > Forensic Medicine
  • #11 in Books > Medical Books > Pharmacology > Toxicology

I love reading about famous crimes, medical oddities, and cases solved by forensics. This book has them all, and is every bit as entertainingly well-written as my old favorite, THE MEDICAL DETECTIVES. by Berton Roueche.

Better yet, the title, THE POISONER'S HANDBOOK, is not just hyperbole. In describing famous New York City crimes committed with poison, the author discusses the chemical makeup, toxic effects, and early-20th-century sources of (1) chloroform, (2) methyl alcohol, (3) cyanide, (4) arsenic, (5) mercury, (6) carbon monoxide, (7) radium, and (8) thallium.

In reading this book, you will probably find that there is a lot you thought you knew but didn't really know about well-known poisons frequently encountered in mystery novels and television shows. Did you think that fast-acting cyanide delivers a "one whiff, you're done" death? Think again! Did you think that only Skid Row bums drank wood alcohol during Prohibition? Not so! Did you know that Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning? Probably, but did you know exactly how radium works in the body to produce aplastic anemia and death?

In reading this book, you will also learn about pioneering forensics efforts that required the grinding up of large samples of brain and organ tissue prior to laboratory testing. (In the early 20th century, testing was done with "wet" chemistry; today it is done with "dry" chemistry that only requires smears for testing.) The testing itself required many time-consuming steps and tricky procedures. Some of the testing involved tissue samples that were retained in room-temperature containers for weeks and months.

I am a professor of chemistry at a major university, and Deborah Blum's book was an impulse buy for me.
After all, you can't go wrong with a popular science book about forensic toxicology and chemistry, can you?

It appears that this is the first book I regret buying for my Kindle (I am trying to get a refund now).
Most, if not all of the chemistry (and physics) in this book is entirely disconnected from the reality of science. Blum's treatment of poisons, analytical procedures and basic science ranges from simple misstatements, inaccuracies and misunderstandings to statements that are outright wrong. Some of these are listed below:

* The action of mustard chemical warfare agents has nothing to do with "becoming a ferocious form of sulfuric acid". Mustards act through alkylative damage of DNA (and other biomolecules).
* Sodium carbonate is not an acidic chemical.
* HCN is not a "potent acid".
* No additional source of hydrogen is needed to perform a Marsh test for arsenic.
* It is not likely that arsenic compounds will crystallize in the tissues of a poisoning victim.
* The Reinsch test is not a simple color test, as is implied by Blum's description. This is according to Gettler himself: [...]
* Electrical current is not measured in volts.
* Blum's description of radioactive decay, to borrow a phrase from Wolfgang Pauli, "is not even wrong".

This list is by no means comprehensive - these are just some of the many cringe-inducing parts in the book.
Blum spends pages upon pages on this bad science, talking about "ooze", "bubbling mess", "whizzing" elementary particles, "crystals of white arsenic" found in bodies, and "synthetic methyl alcohol called methanol".

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