Summary of Deborah Blum's The Poisoner's Handbook

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The city’s coroner, Patrick Riordan, was trying to fast-talk himself out of charges that he showed up for work drunk. He had been accused of sneering at bodies during an accident eight hours after the crash.

#2 Mors was a nurse at a German Odd Fellows home in Yonkers. He was asked to help with the removal of some of the sickest residents, and he decided to poison them. He first tried arsenic, but the elderly man he selected did not die in an orderly fashion.

#3 Chloroform was a popular sedative and sleep aid. It was used to treat hiccupping, seasickness, colic, vomiting, and diarrhea. It was also used to rob occupied homes, chloroform being a potent poison.

#4 The more doctors used chloroform, the more they realized that it was a capricious kind of anesthesia. It was riskier for children, the elderly, and alcoholics, but it also killed healthy adults.

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Release date

Ebook: 6 June 2022