SSS 2010-02-25

Welcome to the science stock, the weekly podcast of scientific Americans posted on Feburary 25th, 2010. I am Steve Mirsky.

It’s called The Poisoner's Handbook. But in the most subversive 1 way it’s about something that is buried in my heart which I think chemistry is both beautiful and senister. That’s full of surprise when the journalist Deborah Blum, author of the new book The Poisoner's Handbook . We’ll talk about that handbook and how thanks to the work of some dedicated 2 individules, it’s a lot harder to get away with murder through chemistry than it used to be. Plus Deborah will tell us about recent science in the news. First up Deborah and I were both at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement 3 of Science in San Diego. We spoke 4 on Feburary 19th.

“Many people may not read the acknowlegdgements or in your book they’re called the gratitudes, (yes) but I read them and I just want to know is your husband any more relaxed around you since the publication of the book all about poison.”

“Not entirely 5. But he did tell me that when they find his body they are all going to know who did it.”

“You say that he probably subconsciously 6, when you would be talking about working on the book, he would move his coffee cup just a little further away from you and close his hands and keep an eye on it.”

“Well, Imagine when you are sitting at breakfast and your wife is (going to) say:”You know what’s really interesting about the way that Scieni kills people?” And it’s like reflects. Scieni comes out of her mouth and your coffee cup is moving. I’ve seen this for many mornings and I am just the kind of person who talks about what she’s working on.”

“So the book is obviously all about poison and that makes it all about chemistry. It’s really a chemistry book in disguise.”

“It is. It’s called The Poisoner's Handbook. But in the most subversive way it’s about something that is nearly buried in my heart which I think chemistry is both beautiful and senister.”

“Yeah, because what I didn’t realize until I read your book is that basically up till a hundred years ago you could pretty much kill somebody with poison and get away with it.”

“That’s right. A New York City issued report 1918 in which they actually wrote the poisoners could operate with impunity 7 in New York City. And so part of my book is about  the invention of forensic 8 toxichology. And we take this kind of CSI stuff so for granted now that scientists have taken seriously that they know what they are going to do with amazing chemical things. But before the 1920s, it was a terrific time to be a poisoner and not so great a time to be a poisoner’s intended victim.”

“Or a research tried to prove that somebody have been poisoned and somebody in particular have done the poisoning because the techoniques have to be developed. And you talked a lot about these two main people, who were the real heros of the book, really, the real heros of what has turned forensic into science. “

“That’s right. I think they were heros. I mean these guys were civil servants that were the first chief medical examiner of New York City trial’s norious. He started in 1918. And he hired the first forensic chemist at a latin American city. His name is Alexander Gaitheler. And they were flooded with poisons. There were murders, there were different public health hazards that have come up and there was not a lot good science to understand those chemicals. So they were doing these researches as they wanted. They would get murder case and sometimes they would be doing animal experiments to figure out the poison right in the middle of the trial. Or Gaitheler used to, I always love this story I don’t know why. But he would go up to his corner butcher shop and he would pick up a few pounds of raw liver (which he paid for himself.) which he paid for himself. They were so underfunded. And he would go and chopped it off and injected a few chemicals into it daily just to try to figure out what they chemicals did to the tissue.”