Poisons of the Past PDF Download

Author: Mary Allerton Kilbourne Matossian
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300051216
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 210

View

Book Description
Did food poisoning cause the Black Plague, the Salem witch-hunts, and other significant events in human history? In this pathbreaking book, historian Mary Kilbourne Matossian argues that epidemics, sporadic outbursts of bizarre behavior, and low fertility and high death rates from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries may have been caused by food poisoning from microfungi in bread, the staple food in Europe and America during this period. "A bold book with a stimulating thesis. Matossian's claims for the role of food poisoning will need to be incorporated into any satisfactory account of past demographic trends."--John Walter, Nature "Matossian's work is innovative and original, modest and reasoned, and opens a door on our general human past that historians have not only ignored, but often did not even know existed."--William Richardson, Environmental History Review "This work demonstrates an impressive variety of cross-national sources. Its broad sweep also reveals the importance of the history of agriculture and food and strengthens the view that the shift from the consumption of mold-poisoned rye bread to the potato significantly contributed to an improvement in the mental and physical health of Europeans and Americans."--Naomi Rogers, Journal of American History "This work is a true botanical-historical tour de force."--Rudolf Schmid, Journal of the International Association of Plant Taxonomy "Intriguing and lucid."--William K. Beatty, Journal of the American Medical Association

Author: Maxim Jakubowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781596871601
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
Edith Pargeter, who also writes under the name Ellis Peters, previously combined her passion for history and storytelling in her creation of the much-loved monk, Brother Cadfael. It was she who paved the way for many others to explore the past through the thriving field of historical mysteries, and for this she was loved by readers and other writers alike. Past Poisons is a bumper crop of outstanding new short stories by the leading American and British historical crime writers, all wishing to pay tribute to the work of Ellis Peters. Maxim Jakubowski is a former publisher and owner of the world-famous Murder One bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road. As well as being a writer and editor of various past cult publishing imprints, he is acknowledged as a disturbing and controversial voice in contemporary fiction. His collections have sold massively. He is a regular on television and radio where he is an expert on crime, erotica, and film. As a columnist for the Guardian he also writes on the arts for The Times. Maxim is literary director of the prestigious Crime Scene festival held at London's National Film Theatre. He is the author of many titles including Skin In Darkness, but also the editor for Past Poisons (An Ellis Peters Memorial Anthology of Historical Crime) and Murder Through the Ages.

Author: Yan Liu
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295749016
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

View

Book Description
Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295749013 At first glance, medicine and poison might seem to be opposites. But in China’s formative era of pharmacy (200–800 CE), poisons were strategically employed as healing agents to cure everything from abdominal pain to epidemic disease. Healing with Poisons explores the ways physicians, religious figures, court officials, and laypersons used toxic substances to both relieve acute illnesses and enhance life. It illustrates how the Chinese concept of du—a word carrying a core meaning of “potency”—led practitioners to devise a variety of methods to transform dangerous poisons into effective medicines. Recounting scandals and controversies involving poisons from the Era of Division to the Tang, historian Yan Liu considers how the concept of du was central to how the people of medieval China perceived both their bodies and the body politic. He also examines the wide range of toxic minerals, plants, and animal products used in classical Chinese pharmacy, including everything from the herb aconite to the popular recreational drug Five-Stone Powder. By recovering alternative modes of understanding wellness and the body’s interaction with foreign substances, this study cautions against arbitrary classifications and exemplifies the importance of paying attention to the technical, political, and cultural conditions in which substances become truly meaningful. Healing with Poisons is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of the University of Buffalo.

Author: Addie Thorley
Publisher: Page Street YA
ISBN: 1624147135
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

View

Book Description
No one looks kindly on the killer of a king. “Fast-paced and refreshing.” – SLJ, starred review “The perfect blend of history and dark fantasy.” – Mary Taranta, author of Shimmer and Burn “Thrilling, romantic, and addictive.” – Rosalyn Eves, author of Blood Rose Rebellion “The only cure is to finish it.” – Lyndsay Ely, author of Gunslinger Girl After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, seventeen-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother’s Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: they’re not heroes of the people, as they’ve always claimed to be, but murderers. Herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters her mother vows to purge. Royal bastard Josse de Bourbon is more kitchen boy than fils de France. But when the Shadow Society assassinates the Sun King and half of the royal court, he must become the prince he was never meant to be in order to save his injured sisters and the petulant dauphin. Forced to hide in the sewers beneath the city, Josse’s hope of reclaiming Paris seems impossible—until his path collides with Mirabelle’s. She’s a deadly poisoner. He’s a bastard prince. They are sworn enemies, yet they form a tenuous pact to unite the commoners and former nobility against the Shadow Society. But can a rebellion built on mistrust ever hope to succeed?

Author: Nancy Odegaard
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780759105157
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 164

View

Book Description
Old Poisons, New Problems is a practical guide to identifying, testing for, and dealing with contaminated cultural materials archived in museum collections. Special features include worksheets for performing basic tests, charts of scientific and historical information on known pesticides, data resources, and illustrations. This book will be useful to the museum community and tribal groups involved with the management and/or repatriation of these collections.

Author: John Parascandola
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597977039
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 209

View

Book Description
For centuries, arsenic's image as a poison has been inextricably tied to images of foul play. In King of Poisons, John Parascandola examines the surprising history of this deadly element. From Gustave Flaubert to Dorothy Sayers, arsenic has long held a place in the literary realm as an instrument of murder and suicide. It was delightfully used as a source of comedy in the famous play Arsenic and Old Lace. But as Parascandola shows, arsenic has had a number of surprising real-world applications. It was frequently found in such common items as wallpaper, paint, cosmetics, and even candy, and its use in medical treatments was widespread. American ambassador Clare Boothe Luce suffered from exposure to arsenical paint in her study, and Napoleon's death has long been speculated to be the result of accidental or intentional poisoning. But arsenic poisoning is still a public menace. In the neighborhood surrounding American University in Washington, D.C., the army has undertaken a massive cleanup of artillery shells and bottles containing chemical warfare agents such as arsenical lewisite after a number of workmen and residents became ill. Arsenic contamination of the water supply in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India, is a major public health problem today as well. From murder to crime fiction, from industrial toxin to chemical warfare, arsenic remains a powerful force in modern life.

Author: Deborah Blum
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525560289
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

View

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book The inspiration for PBS's AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film The Poison Squad. From Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, the dramatic true story of how food was made safe in the United States and the heroes, led by the inimitable Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who fought for change By the end of nineteenth century, food was dangerous. Lethal, even. "Milk" might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This was not by accident; food manufacturers had rushed to embrace the rise of industrial chemistry, and were knowingly selling harmful products. Unchecked by government regulation, basic safety, or even labelling requirements, they put profit before the health of their customers. By some estimates, in New York City alone, thousands of children were killed by "embalmed milk" every year. Citizens--activists, journalists, scientists, and women's groups--began agitating for change. But even as protective measures were enacted in Europe, American corporations blocked even modest regulations. Then, in 1883, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Purdue University, was named chief chemist of the agriculture department, and the agency began methodically investigating food and drink fraud, even conducting shocking human tests on groups of young men who came to be known as, "The Poison Squad." Over the next thirty years, a titanic struggle took place, with the courageous and fascinating Dr. Wiley campaigning indefatigably for food safety and consumer protection. Together with a gallant cast, including the muckraking reporter Upton Sinclair, whose fiction revealed the horrific truth about the Chicago stockyards; Fannie Farmer, then the most famous cookbook author in the country; and Henry J. Heinz, one of the few food producers who actively advocated for pure food, Dr. Wiley changed history. When the landmark 1906 Food and Drug Act was finally passed, it was known across the land, as "Dr. Wiley's Law." Blum brings to life this timeless and hugely satisfying "David and Goliath" tale with righteous verve and style, driving home the moral imperative of confronting corporate greed and government corruption with a bracing clarity, which speaks resoundingly to the enormous social and political challenges we face today.

Author: Deborah Blum
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101524898
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 338

View

Book Description
Equal parts true crime, twentieth-century history, and science thriller, The Poisoner's Handbook is "a vicious, page-turning story that reads more like Raymond Chandler than Madame Curie." —The New York Observer “The Poisoner’s Handbook breathes deadly life into the Roaring Twenties.” —Financial Times “Reads like science fiction, complete with suspense, mystery and foolhardy guys in lab coats tipping test tubes of mysterious chemicals into their own mouths.” —NPR: What We're Reading A fascinating Jazz Age tale of chemistry and detection, poison and murder, The Poisoner's Handbook is a page-turning account of a forgotten era. In early twentieth-century New York, poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime. Science had no place in the Tammany Hall-controlled coroner's office, and corruption ran rampant. However, with the appointment of chief medical examiner Charles Norris in 1918, the poison game changed forever. Together with toxicologist Alexander Gettler, the duo set the justice system on fire with their trailblazing scientific detective work, triumphing over seemingly unbeatable odds to become the pioneers of forensic chemistry and the gatekeepers of justice. In 2014, PBS's AMERICAN EXPERIENCE released a film based on The Poisoner's Handbook.

Author: Maria V. Snyder
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1459248260
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

View

Book Description
From New York Times Bestselling Author Maria V. Snyder Choose: a quick death… or slow poison… Locked deep in the palace dungeon for killing her abuser, Yelena knows she’ll never be free again. The laws in Ixia are strict, and murderers must be executed, no matter the reason. But just as she’s resigned herself to her fate, she’s offered an extraordinary reprieve. As the food taster, Yelena will eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. To make matters worse, the chief of security deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust, and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again, and in order to survive, she must unravel the secrets behind the past she’s been running from. The Chronicles of Ixia Series by Maria V Snyder Book One: Poison Study Book Two: Magic Study Book Three: Fire Study Book Four: Storm Glass Book Five: Sea Glass Book Six: Spy Glass Book Seven: Shadow Study Book Eight: Night Study Book Nine: Dawn Study

Author: Boris Volodarsky
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1848325428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

View

Book Description
In late November 2006 the world was shaken by the ruthless assassination in London of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Lt Col of the Russian security service (FSB). The murder was the most notorious crime committed by the Russian intelligence on foreign soil in over three decades. The author, Boris Volodarsky, who was consulted by the Metropolitan Police during the investigation and remains in close contact with Litvinenko’s widow, is a former Russian military intelligence officer and an international expert in special operations. His narrative reveals that since 1917 – beginning with Lenin and his Cheka – the Russian security services have regularly carried out bespoke poisoning operations all over the world to eliminate the enemies of the Kremlin. The author proves that the Litvinenko’s poisoning is just one episode in the chain of murders that continues until the present day. Some of these assassinations or attempted assassinations are already known, others are revealed here for the first time. Uniquely Volodarsky has had a personal involvement in almost every each of the 20 cases, from the radioactive thallium poisoning of the Soviet defector Nikolai Khokhlov in Frankfurt in September 1957 to the ricin ‘umbrella murder’ of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978. "Here, for the fan of murder thrillers and modern history alike, is a cracking good read. In brilliant light we see what lay for nearly a century behind the London polonium poisoning of British citizen Alexander Litvinenko, former Russian. It was just one recent hit by the world's most prolific serial killer -- the Russian state. With original research guided by his insider's eye and scholarly care, Boris Volodarsky recounts scores of murders. Assassination emerges as state policy, as institutionalized bureacracy, as day-to-day routine, as laboratory science, as a branch of medicine researching ways not to stave off death but to deliver it in apparently innocent or accidental forms, and as engineering technology, devising ever-new devices to meet each new requirement, from umbrella tips and cigarette cases and rolled-up newspapers -- to Litvinenko's teacup." Tennent H. Bagley, former CIA chief of Soviet Bloc counterintelligence.