Neil Bradbury is a professor of physiology whose first book, A taste for poison, uses stories of poisons and poisons as a means of explaining physiological processes by describing how each poison disrupts them. The creepy episodes are like the proverbial spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down; Bradbury seems to think that people will only read about human physiology if they are first treated to stories that show that science is not boring, that it can even be dangerous and spicy. He may be right.
Each chapter focuses on one deadly molecule and the killers who used it, then explains how it is deadly. So we learn how electrical signals propagate through nerve cells and are then transmitted across synapses by neurotransmitters. This is evident in the chapter on atropine, the toxin in deadly nightshades that blocks the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and again in the chapter on strychnine, a popular rat killer that blocks the neurotransmitter glycine. We learn about aerobic respiration in the chapter on cyanide, which prevents the mitochondria in our cells from using oxygen to generate energy. And we read about protein synthesis in the chapter on ricin, which destroys ribosomes, the complexes responsible for building protein in every cell.
A better alternative?
As a pedagogical tool to teach physiology, the book is cute, but that’s all. Deborah Blum’s The Poisoner’s Handbook deals with the birth of toxicology and forensics; it covers the same terrain, but it’s much more engaging.
Blum is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, while Dr. Bradbury is not. There are quite a few clunky phrases in there. Describing a victim’s request to her (murderous) husband to come get her to watch TV in a while, he writes, “It turned out that Elizabeth would never watch TV again.” ugh.
Recounting an interview with another poisoner after he killed his wife (and sickened eight other people), Bradbury writes: “He begged the perpetrator to come forward and surrender to the police as soon as possible, knowing that he himself was the man the police were looking for.” And when he talks about how radioactive polonium-210 destroys DNA, he writes: “The alpha particles indiscriminately destroy the liver cells, like Vandals sacking Rome.”
But Bradbury has a sense of humor, so we also get a few sentences that aren’t necessarily gems, but can certainly bring a smile. Introducing a monkshood poisoning victim, Bradbury notes: “If you spend more than a second in your mind, you’d realize that the nickname ‘Lucky’ is just tempting fate.”
What’s so great?
The quote Bradbury chose as the caption begins: “As a rule, women are the great poisoners.” That’s a strange statement, since his first three stories are about men who poison their wives. The fourth is about a man who poisons his beloved, for whom he was separated from his wife. Then there’s a brief interlude about the Russian government tracking down and poisoning a defector, before moving on to the Lambeth poisoner, whose victims were prostitutes. So it’s not clear how Bradbury defines ‘great’, but it doesn’t seem to be based on frequency.
The Lambeth poisoner only went after prostitutes after poisoning his pregnant wife. In fact, a number of the victims described here were pregnant; the men apparently thought poisoning them was preferable to handling a baby. In this sense, the poisoners reflect society as a whole, such as the highest risk pregnant women face in the US is murderous partners†
Hopefully the people who read this book will find it useful Bradbury’s note to the appendix (titled “Pick Your Poison”) to heart; it reads, “The following information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to outline the pros or cons of using any particular poison in committing murder.”
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