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47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lurid Tales of Chemistry, June 20, 2005
We are mere bundles of chemicals, most of which are shuttled back and forth with astonishing speed, accuracy, and efficiency. It is so fine-tuned a system that it is not hard to find chemicals that will make it all go wrong. Some of these chemicals are so basic as to be the very elements of the universe around us, and in _The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison_ (Oxford University Press), John Emsley has given us a chemistry text dressed in the entertaining garb of famous poisoning cases in history and in popular culture. Chemistry is often presented as neither exciting nor fun, but Emsley (whose most recent book was an entertaining history of phosphorus) knows that even a big book on the big five elements (arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury, and thallium) is going to be attractive reading for many of us, if the elements are connected with lethality. The publisher, staid old Oxford, knows it, too, and has dressed the book with a lurid picture of a fearsome bearded man holding a small bottle with a skull and crossbones on it. Students of the physical sciences: prepare for a bit of morbid fun.
The alchemists developed poisons, but mostly set about poisoning themselves. Newton's hair, for instance, has been analyzed, and it had greatly elevated levels of mercury, lead, arsenic, and antimony; he often tried to volatilize compounds of these, and could not help breathing them in. He did live to be 84, and was certainly productive, but he was an unpleasant and paranoid man; to what extent the poisons (especially mercury) addled his brain we will never know. Hatters (as in "mad as a hatter") were famously subject to the derangement mercury brought since they used mercury nitrate to make felt. Another career field that had a surprising danger from mercury: detective work. The dusting powder that used to be used for finding fingerprints would be breathed in by the one doing the dusting; it was only in the 1940s that the elemental culprit for the tremors, irritability, and other symptoms in detectives was identified and the powder formula changed. Emsley gives many anecdotes of deliberate poisonings, often by serial killers like Hélène Jegado, who poisoned an unknown number of people during her career, using arsenic. She was a pious and intelligent servant, who was distressed at each of the funerals she had to attend. "My masters die wherever I go," she sobbed at one funeral, and many sympathized with her bad luck. Her last poisoning occurred in 1851, a time when forensic arsenic levels could be obtained from the stomach contents of her last victim, fingering her positively. She didn't get any financial gain from the deaths, but arsenic was used so consistently that in France it was known as _poudre de succession_ (inheritance powder).
Emsley's history covers his elements well, and not just their histories in poisoning. Much of the book is an examination of the history of chemistry itself, from pre-scientific days to the current ones when poisoners are much more at risk of discovery than ever before. There are welcome side trips, like the one about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome being blamed on the release of antimony from infant mattresses. The antimony had been used as a fire retardant, but after much scientific hand-wringing, was found not to be an issue in SIDS. There is good humor in the ghoulishness; Emsley writes that thallium used to be "... sold in over-the-counter products for removing unwanted hair. It was also used to remove unwanted relatives." There is plenty of well-explained chemistry here, for those who need it as justification for enjoying lurid stories of poisoners; the stories may be morbidly fascinating, but fascinating nonetheless.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Poison Pen of Professor Emsley, August 28, 2005
Professor John Emsley is my favorite guide to the world of chemistry and I look forward to every book that bears his good name. The Elements Of Murder was no exception and I ordered it long before it came out. I wanted to give it a 5 star rating even before I read it, but I must give it a 4 star rating after a thorough reading. Professor Emsley has authored many books: The Elements and Nature's Building Blocks are references [for professional and layperson respectively], Molecules at an Exhibition is a collection of essays, and The 13th Element takes on a single subject [phosphorus]. Vanity, Vitality, and Virility, his previous book, seems to be the model for The Elements of Murder. In Vanity, Vitality, and Virility, Emsley takes on multiple chemical subjects in short vignettes, has an introduction and postscript, and includes a glossary. The problem I have with The Elements of Murder involves what it is missing: there is no postscript or epilogue. I enjoyed the stories of death and murder involving the elements mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead, and thallium. I enjoyed the short tales of other poisonous elements in the last chapter. I also felt that the book ended rather abruptly. I still recommend this book to anyone with an interest in chemistry [especially chemistry and history], but I hope that when it comes out in paperback [or in the later hardback printings] that some kind of conclusion is added to the book.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elements of Darkness, June 10, 2008
This review is from: The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison (Paperback)
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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