Poisoners HandbookHalloween may be over, but I’m still elbow-deep in some very spooky reading: The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum. I learned about this book from one of my favorite podcasts, “Stuff You Missed in History Class,” since they’ve referred to it in a couple of episodes on famous poisoners lately.

The book is about the birth of modern forensic medicine, which more or less took place in Jazz Age New York. The medical examiner’s office had been a pretty corrupt and lazy department, accepting bribes to change death certificates and generally not being too ethical. Until, that is, the crime-fighting duo of chief medical examiner Charles Norris and toxicologist Alexander Gettler teamed up to kick ass and modernize the entire field of forensic medicine. They fired the deadwood, forced the police to work with them, and developed new and ever-more-sophisticated tests to detect minute amounts of then-popular poisons like chloroform and arsenic.

I realize that the closer to Thanksgiving we get, the more suspicious it’s going to look as I’m toting this one around. But don’t worry, it’s completely safe to try my famous pumpkin pie!

Stephanie Perry
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