The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison by John Emsley

Starred Review. Emsley (Vanity, Vitality, and Virility: The Science Behind the Products You Love to Buy) hits a bull's eye in this fascinating, wonderfully readable forensic history of five deadly chemicals (mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead and thallium) and their starring role in that most intoxicating drama of pure evil: murder. A deeply knowledgeable chemist (he's science writer in residence at Cambridge University) with a gift for making accessible the dry and bewilderingly arcane, Emsley's at his best in case studies of infamous poisoners and their victims. During the reign of James I of England, for instance, the poet Thomas Overbury, having fallen out of royal favor, was administered three fatal doses of mercury, only to survive. For his stubbornness he was administered a fourth dose—by enema—and finally succumbed. Mary Bateman, the "Yorkshire Witch," was equally unlucky. Convicted in 1809 of poisoning a client, Mary was hanged and her corpse skinned so pieces could be sold as charms. Not all the incidents are in the past: Emsley also discusses contemporary environmental poisoning from mercury and Saddam Hussein's use of thallium sulfate on his enemies. Fanatical devotees of the macabre might thumb past sections devoted to less sensational history. But the general reader will not be disappointed: each of these deadly toxins was at one time or another promoted for its unique health or beauty benefits. 15 b&w illus. (June)
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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.