The Poisoner's Handbook

Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

by Deborah Blum

319 pages

English language

Published Aug. 6, 2010 by Penguin Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-59420-243-8
OCLC Number:: 430052048

(25 reviews)

The untold story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler investigate a family mysteriously stricken bald, factory workers with crumbling bones, a diner serving poisoned pies, and many others. Each case presents a deadly new puzzle and Norris and Gettler create revolutionary experiments to tease out even the wiliest compounds from human tissue. From the vantage of their laboratory it also becomes clear that murderers aren't the only toxic threat--modern life has created a kind of poison playground, and danger lurks around every corner.

1 edition

markm reviewed The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Review of "The Poisoner's Handbook" on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This book is a few different things. It is more or less organized by certain early 20th-century true crime events, but it also sort of tells the story of the first Manhattan forensic pathologist at Bellevue, Charles Norris and a chemist name Alexander Gettler who worked with him, it is sort of a lay survey of forensic toxicology, and it is has asides about various aspects of contemporary New York and US history e.g., What was the Black Hand society?

I am a retired pathologist and this description should have indicated a book that was written for me, but the problems are these: The book’s various aspects are jumbled and disorganized. There is repetition. The crime descriptions sort of fade away, the topic changes, and I wondered what happened. The book is written in an informal manner, and this informality seems to be an attempt to highlight some gruesome aspect of the descriptions. The author’s sources are largely newspaper articles and Norris and Gettler’s research papers. The papers are summarized using various lay terms that are sometimes inaccurate. So, I was frequently irritated, but there is a great deal of interesting information here and I think many readers might be able to get more out of it than I could.

The author uses colorful names for chemical mixtures, dark, gelatinous ooze,he then steamed his ooze, slurry of tissue, a bubbling mess.
Pathological descriptions have been changed and are misleading, organs are described as appearing chewed, kidneys are dribbled with blood. Jargon terms are used for a reason and it is usually best to define them rather than swapping them out.
The old weight measure of a grain is used without explanation.
Findings at a graveyard are referred to as carnage.
The author uses the old term ptomaine which was a popular theory at the time but is now known to be fallacious and shouldn’t be used without explanation.

Molly Foust reviewed The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Review of "The Poisoner's Handbook" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A fabulously entertaining look at famous poisoners of the early 20th century, prohibition, and two founders and heroes of forensic science, the first chief medical examiner Charles Norris and chemist Alexander Gettler. The stories of Mike the Durable, and the innocent people the new science saved were particularly enjoyable, and most shocking and awful, was the total lack of regulation industry enjoyed at the expense of the population until the 1930s. And the government poisoning alcohol during prohibition, in order to make it more deadly and scare people out of drinking-at the expense of the poor- what a horrific abuse.

Pentapod reviewed The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Review of "The Poisoner's Handbook" on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Listened to the Audible audiobook which was very well read, and enjoyed this a lot. It's a fascinating look at how New York city changed from a city full of corrupt and incompetent coroners to lead the way in forensic toxicology. The book is both a chapter by chapter look at different poisons that were popular over the years, and the story of New York's new Chief Medical Examiner Charles Norris and his head toxicologist as they reform the corrupt city system and race to keep up with the poisoners who are moving on to new types of poison as soon as the researchers figure out how to detect the use of the previous poison.

Besides being a fascinating look at the history and some case studies of poisoning, it's also a striking history of Norris, who was clearly a passionately dedicated man whose reforms to the system must have saved more lives than can possibly be counted. In addition to reforming the city coroners and establishing a world class forensics team and related procedures, he also campaigned against the use of poisons such as arsenic and cyanide in common household products (everything from beauty creams to wallpaper), pushed for regulations to require corporations to list the ingredients in their products and to be held legally accountable for injuries caused, and was far ahead of his time in warning about the dangers of car exhaust and smoking, among other things.

He was also an outspoken opponent of prohibition and the book is an interesting look at prohibition from the point of view of toxicology, as Norris and his team watched in horror as the number of accidental poisoning cases escalated sharply due to the unregulated ingredients of moonshine, the way prohibition converted casual drinkers to binge drinkers, and the way the government actually actively poisoned (with extremely dangerous and known to be lethal compounds) all other sources of alcohol that might be used to create moonshine. This was a side of prohibition I hadn't ever heard of and it's shocking to believe the government was directly responsible for so many horrible deaths by poison of its citizens.

All in all a very interesting audiobook and left me wishing the story had continued past Norris's era and closer to the modern day.

Gossamerchild reviewed The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Review of "The poisoner's handbook" on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

I began this book very irritated because the author chose to use the same word 3 times on a page. That kind of editorial oversight drives me insane and is completely distracting (and it's okay if I do it, I'm not a writer!) Once I got into the book, though, that improved dramatically. This is basically a history of forensics and the detection of poisons in dead bodies. Fascinating, disgusting, and disturbing. Through in a little Prohibition and the amount of dead people from poisoning skyrocketed, which was also an interesting bit of information. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't really understand the chemistry all that much, but still found it compelling. Anyone who is addicted to Bones or any of the CSI TV series will love this book.

Re-read this after seeing the author at a library conference. Very excellent speaker.

AliCorbin reviewed The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Review of "The poisoner's handbook" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

8 people. Including Stephanie, who usually comes to the other group, and her husband, who had never been to either group. There was disgust at the government intentionally poisoning alcohol during Prohibition, and awe at what Morris and Gettler had managed to accomplish. And wonderment at what sort of person goes into that line of work.

Jamie reviewed The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum

Review of "The poisoner's handbook" on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I liked this one well enough. Blum did a nice job of tying incremental improvements in forensic science to two New York scientists in order to provide a minimal narrative arc. It's also a good snapshot of the prohibition era and the underpinnings of some of the strife and adventure of the speakeasies. Despite this, it's not exactly a page-turner. I had no trouble putting it down to seek out some interludes of excitement.