Review of The elements of murder: A history of poison by John Emsley
CITATION: Emsley, J. (2005). The elements of murder: A history of poison. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Reviewer: Dr W. P. Palmer
The elements of murder: A history of poison is a book of 418 pages, full of detail, full of chemistry, but in small print and lacking illustration. Emsley concentrates on just five elements, mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead and thallium, the compounds of which are poisonous, There is a final section on other poisonous elements. The main emphasis of the book is on the murders and the trials that relate to these murders where the cause of death is one of the five elements, mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead and thallium. There is also considerable interest in the historic human and environmental damage caused by these elements.
The book contains much interesting chemistry, but there is a pattern of such ‘an element of sameness’ between the murders that the book becomes rather dull at times. Emsley’s introduction contains the words ‘Murder by poison may be a dying art...’ which is a bad pun with which to start a book.
The first chapter provides some stories of alchemists and alchemy. Emsley points out the important place that mercury played an important part in alchemy and many alchemists spent a great deal of time heating mercury without ventilation, which would account for many early deaths. Many alchemists are mentioned, with some space given to Isaac Newton’s interest in alchemy and his apparent madness in 1693 which could have been caused by a number of chemicals that he had been using. Throughout the book possibilities are raised, but in the end, conclusions cannot be reached. Here Emsley states ‘It is not easy to say to what extent Newton’s paranoid behaviour was due to mercury poisoning. The next story in the chapter is the strange death of Charles II (of Britain), which could have been caused by a poison such as mercury as he was greatly interested in practical chemistry.
After a general introduction of the poisonous elements using alchemy as the key idea, Emsley now introduces the poisonous elements one by one starting with three chapters providing instances of mercury poisoning people. Where there are social issues relating to any of the five elements causing harm to people, Emsley offers a balanced perspective. In the case of mercury, he presents issues of mercury in dental amalgam and whether it causes harm to individuals with many fillings and he even considers the mercury vapour emitted to the atmosphere when the dead are cremated. Other issues discussed are mercury compounds used in medicine, a historical case where a British man-of war captured a Spanish vessel laden with mercury with terrible effects on the British crew, hat-makers exposure to mercury leading to the expression of mad-hatter and the problems, and the Minamata Bay disaster in Japan caused by high mercury levels in fish eaten by the local population. The last chapter in the section on mercury provides details of two murders where mercury compounds were used to poison the victims. If mercury compounds were never much used as a means for murder, arsenic compounds certainly were a major method of murder.
Emsley provides multicultural evidence of this citing Chinese, Indian and Roman knowledge of the use of arsenic as a poison and quotes some lines of poetry from Chaucer and Basil Valentine to indicate its deadly properties. There does not appear to be evidence that arsenic is essential for the human body, but some people are able to eat small quantities on a regular basis. In medicine, arsenic was used as an ingredient of Dr Fowler’s solution, which was regarded as a cure-all in Victorian times and some of Charles Darwin’s illnesses may have been caused by him overdosing himself with the solution. Early in the twentieth century Paul Ehrlich used arsenic as an ingredient in his discovery of Salvarsan as a cure for syphilis. The place of arsenic as a cause of cancer is uncertain and Emsley concludes that it can be a cause of cancer but can also be used in its treatment. Lewisite can be made by reacting acetylene gas with arsenic trichloride and was ready for possible use near the end of World War 1, but was not used. Saddam Hussein is said to have used it in the Iran-Iraq war and he also provided it to Sudan who used it against rebels in the south of Sudan.
There is the arsenic in wallpaper story where wallpaper was manufactured using the arsenic based Scheele’s green. Two detailed stories relate to arsenic poisoning; one story is an old one of Napoleon dying in exile on St Helena. The other story is of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, where Morris had a financial interest in the production of arsenic and also favoured the use of Scheele’s green in the wallpapers that he designed at a time when scientific evidence was mounting about the dangers of this wallpaper.
Arsenic is the most common poison used by those wishing to commit murder by poisoning. Chapter seven contains the details of the trials of eleven murderers. Chapter eight concentrates on the Florence Maybrick case where Florence Maybrick murdered her husband, James Maybrick. The author goes into considerable detail about how the poison was obtained, administered and the amount of arsenic needed for a fatal dose. There is also information about the progress in methods of analysis used to detect arsenic poisoning.
Antimony has not been often been used as a poison of choice for murder, but Emsley has found a number of instances of its use as a murder weapon. Antimony compounds have a long history of use in medicine, most of which are no longer used, but a few uses for medicinal antimony remain. There was a theory that implicated antimony in cot deaths, but on careful examination of the evidence it was concluded that the evidence did not support this theory. In
Chapter ten, Emsley discusses several murders which used antimony compounds (often antimony potassium tartrate) as the means of poisoning the victim. The problem with using antimony is that it is also an emetic, so it causes the intended victim to vomit, which removes most of the poison. Thus small amounts of antimony must be used over an extended period. Also there is a considerable individual variation in their sensitivity to antimony. The cases cited show some of the difficulties that using antimony as a poison presents to the prospective murderer. The first and perhaps most interesting case is the death of Mozart, which is now considered by a majority of physicians to have been due to antimony poisoning, with the likelihood that Mozart took an excess of a medicine containing antimony that his doctors had prescribed for him. There can be no certainty for this conclusion.
Another of the cases considered is that of Dr William Palmer (1824-1856). Palmer may well have murdered up to eight people using antimony as the main means of death. In Chapter eleven, Emsley describes the murders of Severivn Klowoski (alias George Chapman), who was at one time suspected of being Jack the Ripper. George Chapman separated from his first wife, Lucy, and then married three times and in each case murdered his wife using antimony as the poison. He was eventually found guilty of three murders and executed on 7 April, 1903.
The element lead and its compounds has caused much illness and death. It is extremely unusual for murderers to use lead as a poison, but Emsley found three cases where a lead compound had been used (two instances using lead acetate and one using white lead). Additionally, Emsley speculates that Pope Clement II was murdered using an unknown lead compound.
The elements of murder: A history of poison is an excellent book, which is accurate and well-written even though its context is undeniably gruesome. A recommended read!
BILL PALMER
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Customers who read this book also read
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Top reviews from other countries
Colin Murtagh
A book in search of an editor
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2019
Apollonia.
Small print, long book but interesting. Recommend.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2020Amazon Customer
Does what it says on the can
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 4, 2013
