|
|
|
Book Review
| John Emsley, The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) ISBN 0-19-280609-9. pp. xiii+418 including Index, Bibliography and Glossary.
|
| Emsley is establishing himself as a popular science writer, having a number of popular titles against his name, including The Shocking History of Phosphorous and Vanity, Vitality and Virility. After twenty years as a lecturer in chemistry at London University he became a freelance popular science writer, as well as twice being a science writer in residence, first at Imperial College London and then in the Chemistry Department at the University of Cambridge. In 1995 he won the Science Book prize for his Consumer's Good Chemical Guide and in 2003 he was awarded the German Chemical Society's Writer's Award. He bids fair to join a number of successful, popular writers on science and its history—Dava Sobel, Margaret Wertheim, and Simon Winchester, to name but a few. In my opinion, however, to achieve this securely he really should do something to reduce his error rate, as the book contains many small numeric and grammatical errors. |
1
|
|
However, the errors do not greatly detract from an intelligent and thoroughly entertaining discussion of murderous heavy metal poisons. For each of mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead and thallium, Dr Emsley looks at their occurrence in nature, including the human body, and their common uses and abuses. He examines their persistence in the body as well as their metabolism and excretion. Then he turns homicidal by evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of each as poisons—stability, ease of administration, symptoms, lethal doses, the fate of the poison in the body and its durability and hence the ease of tracing and detecting it. Thallium, we learn, can be detected in cremated remains and the levels ingested thus ascertained. Hair often provides excellent evidence years after the subject has died, and can even indicate the stages of ingestion and likely dose through detecting different residues at different points along the same strand of hair, rather like one of Simon Winchester's geological sections. Of course detection and assay has improved markedly, and there have been refinements regarding what may be termed normal concentrations of the various metals in bone, brain, liver as well as hair and so forth. |
2
|
|
This discussion is framed between the early parts of each chapter dealing with occurrence of substances in various parts of the body and their function, and fascinating case studies of famous criminal cases and the resulting trials, chiefly British. Some assessment is made of the psychology or motivation of poisoners ranging from the opportunist to the pathological. |
3
|
|
The final section of the book looks briefly at a number of other potential poisons—barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, fluoride, nickel, potassium, selenium, sodium, tellurium and tin. |
4
|
|
The rich topic Emsley has ably essayed is endlessly fascinating. One could ask for more in almost every direction—more substances, more forensics, more case studies, more on treatment and antidotes. Recently renewed interest in Sydney's famous Bogle Chandler case and the mystery regarding the cause of the illicit lovers' deaths is one suggestion of this. The recent London murder of former Russian KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko by persons so far unknown by polonium 210 is another. In this case, not only is there the radioactive trail from London to Moscow, but 210Po, the Curies' very rare element, weight for weight, is millions of times more toxic than hydrocyanic acid and its lethal dose is measured in nanograms—the LD50* being given as 50ng. There is also the difficulty of manufacture, with world annual production being measured in grams rather than tonnes and the teasing fact of its short half-life, 138 days—meaning that the fatal dose was of recent manufacture, a fact which may be very useful for the sleuths. (Deaths from the 1950s involving this substance—accidental poisonings—were hushed up, while the leukaemia death of the Curies' daughter Irene was probably due to polonium.) |
5
|
Reading Emsley's book sent me back a number of times to my twenty-fourth edition (1958) of Martindale's Extra Pharmacopoeia and reminded me of how its toxicity accounts had fascinated me as a pharmacy student. It also reminded of the vanished terminology, mercurous and mercuric rather than the current mercury II. To say nothing of Hydrarg, Perchlor, Vin Antimon, Liq. Plumbi Subacetas Forte, Liq Arsenicalis and Thall-Rat. Nice nostalgia.
|
6
|
| GREGORY HAINES
|
| JCM CENTRE, ST IGNATIUS' COLLEGE RIVERVIEW |
Notes
* LD50 refers to the dose that produces death in half of a test sample of experimental animals.
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|