Reddit reviews The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Is this the book in question?

And I got something for you.
https://www.amazon.com/Poisoners-Handbook-Murder-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X

Companies will sell things that literally kill their customers and fight tooth and nail to keep doing so. Government had be dragged, kicking and screaming, into actually doing something. It took public demand and outrage. Countless thousands died and millions carried life-long effects due to outright malfeasance by both public and private sectors.

So when you say "regulation" like a 4 letter word, I laugh at your ignorance.

I don't have a TV suggestion, but if you're into reading, The Poisoner's Handbook is really great!

Assuming she doesn't have it ready: The Poisoner's Handbook is a great read about the early history of forensic science mostly told though cases/the life of NYC's first medical examiner.

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York goes into that direction.

Also [The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York] (https://www.amazon.com/Poisoners-Handbook-Murder-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X) if you're interested in forensics.

Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is a real twisty true crime tale, involving a wealthy family and a missing infant.

A bit post-Victorian, but Deborah Blum’s The Poisoner’s Handbook is a great read.

Harold Schechter is an author of many biographies of American Serial killers, including Albert Fish and H H Holmes.

Part I Messe - How about UD's peacock blue shadow, Radium! Makes me think of the poor radium girls - girls who worked in factories that produced radium laced glow in the dark watches. They would dust their hair, face, and even teeth with the radium to give them a very pretty glowing look. Of course, they had no idea just how dangerous radium really was and many faced painful deaths.

Well that was a downer. But if anyone is interested in learning more, I learned about the radium girls from a wonderful book by Deborah Blum called The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York!

Part II will follow!

Intuition by Allegra Goodman fits the bill. I haven't read it, personally. The author's invited talk about it was really annoying and turned me off the book.

The Poisoner's Handbook is a decent account of Charles Norris' life as a scientist in the public eye, admittedly near 100 years ago. There are some glaring chemistry errors in it for a book purportedly about chemistry though.

Very interesting article, and now I want to read that book. Reminds me of one of the best books I've ever read, The Poisoner's Handbook, about the creation of the medical examiner's dept.


http://www.amazon.com/The-Poisoners-Handbook-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X


Sorry for link, I'm on mobile

Her book that she mentions, The Poisoner's Handbook is really worth reading.

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
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.

The history of forensic medicine in the US.

https://www.amazon.com/Poisoners-Handbook-Murder-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X

Deborah Blum's "Poisoner's Handbook" dedicates a whole chapter to radium and a lot of what the Radium girls went through.

Unregulated harmful substances that both consumers and workers are exposed to in the US (then and now) is a reoccurring theme that pops up in that book.

If you've got some time, you should check this out. It covers a number of easily-available (in the 1920s) poisons, their symptoms, and methods of detection. It's nonfiction and thoroughly fascinating!

Yup yup. The experiment they did involved one of the ladies who had died after being a radium-watch painter. Norris and Gettler took her bones and put them in a box lined with lead, and put film-paper on it that would become black upon exposure to radiation. The film turned black after a few days from the amount of radiation being given off by the bones because the radium had been taken up by the body and incorporated.

I recommend The Poisoner's Handbook if anyone is interested in the topic of forensic science.

Not yet verified but in the middle of setting up for a trade. I would recommend reading The Poisoners Handbook! This book is all about the bith of toxicology and it goes along with prohabition and all of the acciedental suicides, poisonings and mass murder's. It is a great read that allowed me to learn something new.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Poisoners-Handbook-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1382502406&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=the+poisoners+handbook

Another excellent true-crime read is the Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Poisoners-Handbook-Forensic-Medicine/dp/014311882X

Also, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale

http://www.amazon.com/The-Suspicions-Mr-Whicher-Victorian/dp/B002VPE6YS

I was going to make a detailed and sassy comment about how I read variations of the same posts every day on the sub but I think I’ve kicked enough people in the shins today so: The Poisoner’s Handbook

A good book that covers this is The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York.

Historically, this was an appointed position and a number of scandals where unqualified coroners were signing death certificates lead to an effort to make medical examiners a more scientific and qualified position.

Here is what I know on the topic. Also highly recommend this book & the American Experience (PBS) episode:

Book

Episode

But it isn’t a how to distill spirits book.