How Do You Know You've Been Poisoned?

The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

I've always wondered back in the Golden Age of Poisoning, all those short-lived Roman Emperors and the Borgia's Way to treat their political enemies, just how did people know that the victim had been poisoned?

There were the hired food tasters, if they got sick, it was poison. But poison doesn't have to be fast-acting. How long did an important person who did not wish to be poisoned wait for her food? Did important persons who had to wait for their food to be proved "not poisoned" ever taste hot food? Did they develop a taste for cold food? This is not necessarily bad, I much prefer my pizza to be cold when I eat it. Could a person who did not wish to be poisoned ever develop their taste buds and really appreciate food? A person who did not wish to be poisoned had the money to eat the really good food, but not the time or even the inclination (if you know that you might be poisoned, you are reluctant to really eat for pleasure because you might not be pleasured by your food, you might be poisoned).

A dead food taster's body proved poison. The dead food taster might have died in agony from a massive dose of arsenic, but what about the subtle doses of arsenic? Or thallium? Or cyanide? You say that you have been poisoned, but can you Prove it? That is why in cases of poisoning, it was best to control the political and judicial process.

"I am the Boss Emperor or Borgia, and I say that That Person of overwhelming political pretensions attempted to take my place in the established Order of Mankind. Off With His Head! And pass the Wine to my New Food Taster!"

In the early twentieth century revolution of applied chemistry, lab technicians and chemistry professors at universities in Europe and America began to develop tests and techniques to detect the levels of poisons in a dead body. After initial resistance in the courts, their testimony as to the results began to be accepted.

Charles Norris was a professor of chemistry at New York University who had come in second (there were only three people who passed the qualification tests) in the examination for the New York Medical Examiner's Office. The New York City Coroner was a political office that did not require any expertise other than intense political loyalty to the mayor. This arrangement worked until the mayor appointed Coroner began to appear at crime scenes drunk and rowdy. People and the newspapers began to be annoyed because the Coroner was not a Fun drunk. Visions of Reform danced in their heads and to head those off before those Reformers started Reforming Everything, the New York Governor demanded that NY City reform its coroner. The mayor agreed and threw the office to the Reform Wolves so he could enjoy the rest of his Corruption in peace.

The mayor was still feisty and wanted to defy and annoy the governor, so he chose the second best qualifier in the Coroner's test who was Mr. Norris. Second best would remain second best, or so the mayor thought. Mr. Norris had other plans and ambitions, he built the New York City's Medical Examiner's office into the best Forensic (a European word for the office that made it seem more...European "Official" like the "Homeland" adapted from the Nazis) laboratory in the US, and one of the best in the world.

This book covers the period from 1915 to 1936 in the use of poison in NYC and how Mr. Norris and his Laboratory developed the means and tests to detect all sorts of poison. Some of the notorious NYC poisoning cases are included.

This time period also covers Prohibition in the US when alcohol was outlawed. Some of the poisons that Mr. Norris and his laboratory had to test were home made hooch and ethyl and methyl alcohol. Prohibition might have made the Temperance Society happy in its goal to make people Moral, but it killed a lot of people who drank and had no intention of not drinking and didn't want to be Moral. They wanted to be high and drunk.

That is the US. Every once in a while, we decide that all of US should be Moral and Live High (high as in moral goodness) and we pass idiotic laws to control people's ethical behavior in ways pleasing to our special moral codes. We forget that we pick our behaviors the way that we pick our moral codes, to please ourselves. What pleases us might not please others, but we decide that everybody has to be and act the same. Then we see the consequences of our actions and we give it up. Then we find something else to be outraged about and that needs our special moral guidance and prohibitions. Damn Human Nature!