The Sunday NY Times Book Review will have a review of a book by Deborah Blum titled "The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York" which may be of interest to some Tipsters. One can read the review at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/books/review/East-t.html?nl=books&emc=booksupdateema3
Blum is a science writer and among her books are "Love at Goon Park", "Sex on the Brain", and "The Monkey Wars". She has her own website where one can get more info: http://www.deborahblum.com/ The review of her current book is somewhat positive but for people interested in forensic medicine and it history, one will have to read it and decide for themselves what its value is. The reviewer points out that the poisons appear to be the main characters while Dr. Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler, the people responsible for creating the first real forensic medicine lab in a medical examiner's office, play secondary roles. In an off-hand comment, the reviewer refers to Radithor, a radium infused water that was used as a medicine in the early 20th century. I had not heard of Radithor and a Google search turned up a large number of hits for Radithor, including a Wikipedia entry for it; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor Quoting the entry: |The story of socialite Eben Byers's death from Radithor consumption |and the associated radiation poisoning found its way into the Wall Street |Journal under the title "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw |Came Off," which led to the strengthening of the Food and Drug |Administration's powers and the demise of most radiation quack cures. There is an interesting Time magazine article on Mr. Byer's death, originally published on April 11, 1932; see: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,743525,00.html I had known about various patent medicines but was unfamiliar with radium-based drinks and other types of "radioactive quackery" such as radioactive toothpaste; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_quackery On an unrelated note, in the Wikipedia entry there is a mention of something called a "prostate warmer". For the curious and adventurous, see: http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/prostate.htm and for more on the museum of quackery, see: http://technolog.it.umn.edu/technolog/fall00/meddevmus.html and http://www.museumofquackery.com/ I believe this complements the "treatment of 'hysteria'" post from a few weeks back. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=913 or send a blank email to leave-913-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
