January's Book: The Poisoner's Handbook

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Journalism (2010 - 278 pp.)

The Poisoner's Handbook takes the reader to the earliest incarnation of public health in New York City, from the creation of the Chief Medical Examiner's office, to Prohibition and its related ills, to a number of high-profile criminal cases. Interspersed with the human interest stories are vivid descriptions of the various elements and compounds used as poisons, each with at least one chapter named for it. The more I read, the more I felt like this was an eerie book to be reading during a pandemic.

Blum is a professor of science journalism, not a historian, so The Poisoner's Handbook reads more like a series of true crime stories* than like an academic monograph. This presentation style keeps the book reading as quickly as an airport novel while being more interesting and far more educational. Journalistic flourishes follow characters' presumed inner thoughts or scenes where their capers may have been set; the quasi-biography of Charles Norris, NYC's first Chief Medical Examiner, reads like a Lost Generation novel: "He left for home with mist gathering on the river behind him and the cobalt sky of evening deepening to black." (223) The sensational retelling of the infamous Ruth Snyder case, which I had heard of before reading, is accompanied by the photo of her in the electric chair. (165-174)

Norris weaves in and out of the book's loose storyline. The originally political position of coroner had attracted such incompetence and turnover that Norris was horrified at the laziness in pronouncement of deaths: "But 'more than probable' was hardly a professional opinion, Norris said." (35) Norris pioneered the meticulous tracking of causes of death at a time when medical examiners were extremely sloppy, to the point that Frederic Mors, a poisoner working in an old-age home, was able to stuff the residents full of chloroform almost completely undetected. (25) If NYC started the 20th century in dire straits, though, Blum makes sure to let the reader know how persistently Norris sought his goals: "But full-time leisure didn't suit Norris. He was happiest with a cause to fight for, a challenge to overcome." (221) This was even so when he expressed difficulty gathering $10 of public funding and a city car; the idea of a Chief Medical Examiner not having use of a car would be unthinkable to us now.

More exotic poisons like cyanide and thallium make later appearances. Most cyanide deaths were either suicide or accident, including hydrogen cyanide gas leaks during fumigations. One high-profile gas leak killed a couple staying in a hotel that was being fumigated. Thallium is a stunning element, bright, leafy green when exposed in a chemical test, but did not appear to be used as a frequent murder weapon, despite being "colorless, odorless, and tasteless." (254)

While the mercury and radium chapters are interesting for the science nerds in all of us, they don't contain much crime. Neither appears to be practical as a murder weapon; mercury is too obvious, and radium takes too long. Arsenic, by contrast, was such an early favourite among murderers that Alexander Gettler, the Hungarian-American scientist responsible for much of the Chief Medical Examiner's early research, devoted much to his time to arsenic testing, such as in the murder of Charles Avery. (94-96) The Mary Creighton conviction, for murder committed by way of Rough on Rats, brought arsenic into the spotlight again.

One thing that surprised me was the book's almost complete lack of mention of Calvin Coolidge, who surfaces only once. (124) "The federal government" as an entity is discussed plenty, and then Herbert Hoover is discussed in particular, calling Prohibition "the noble experiment"** before ducking to the Belgian embassy for a glass of wine. (157) I emerged from The Poisoner's Handbook having no clue what Silent Cal thought of Prohibition, although his mild opposition toward it is not very exciting subject matter. Blum may have simply thought the wood-alcohol-induced death of Mike Malloy was more entertaining subject matter - and she would probably be right.

A criticism any historical book is known to receive is, "How is this applicable in the present day?" Although history and its offshoots contain more contemporary usefulness than the cynics among us suspect, in The Poisoner's Handbook, the usefulness faces the reader head-on. The chapter on carbon monoxide poisoning includes in-depth descriptions of poisoning symptoms, which are invariably useful in a world full of smoke detectors. Prohibition, in turn, caused an uptick in contaminated goods, sometimes intentionally on the parts of governments; this is analogous to the whopping 91% contamination rate among illegal opioids in British Columbia. What is amazing to us now is that Prohibition was a largely bipartisan effort, with the House of Representatives vote coming down with essentially two-thirds support on each side. It would have been nice to see bipartisanism for more productive pursuits than Prohibition, but hey, at least Canada's prime minister and premiers coordinated their pandemic responses and electric vehicle strategy somewhat.

2020 was the first year in recent memory when I didn't get to go to the United States, thanks to the pandemic and the related emergency orders. As someone who hasn't been to NYC since 2011, it was nice to go there in spirit.

Ease of Reading: 8

Educational Content: 8

*See, for example, Erik Larson's Devil in the White City, Richard Zacks's Island of Vice, or Max Haines's True Crime Stories.

**I suppose this is the inspiration for The Noble Experiment winery in Ontario. It's a fun name, but understandably tongue-in-cheek, as I doubt local winemakers consider Prohibition to be noble at all.