John Emsley - The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison

The Elements of Murder

JOHN EMSLEY

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John Emsley 2005

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Contents

Acknowledgements

It is with heartfelt thanks that I acknowledge the support of the following friends and acquaintances for their help in writing this book. Some provided me with information I would not otherwise have had, some were prevailed upon to check that the contents of chapters were scientifically correct, and some were even prevailed upon to read the completed manuscript. In alphabetical order they are as follows:

Dr John Ashby, of Leek, Staffordshire, who works for the Central Toxicological Laboratories, Cheshire, checked the arsenic chapters and provided extra information about this element.

Dr Alan Bailey, of the Analytical Services Centre of the Forensic Science Service, London, vetted the chapters about thallium and checked the Glossary.

Thomas Bittinger, of the Marketing Division of Reckitt Benckiser, translated the paper concerning the poisoning of Pope Clement II.

Paul Board, of Fugro Robertson Ltd., Llandudno, provided material relating to the death of Mozart, and the murderess Zoora Shah, plus several other items. He also read the completed manuscript.

David Dickson, director of the Science and Development Network brought to my notice the research that is being done to find an answer to the arsenic contamination of water supplies in Bangladesh and Bengal.

My wife, Joan Emsley, read the complete text and helped me clarify subjects where it appeared I was assuming the average reader would have a degree in chemistry.

Raymond Holland, of Bristol and Chairman of the Bristol & South West Section of the Society of Chemical Industry, reviewed the chapters on mercury and provided data on the use of mercury(II) chloride in timber preservation.

Steve Humphrey, of the Toxicology Department of the Forensic Science Service, London, read the chapters on arsenic.

Dr Michael Krachler, of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, gave up-to-date advice on antimony analysis and checked the chapters on this element.

Professor Steve Ley and Rose Ley, of the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, read the complete text and made invaluable suggestions for improving it.

Sylvia Countess of Limerick CBE gave me a copy of the Expert Group to Investigate Cot Death Theories: Toxic Gas Hypothesis, which she chaired in 1988, and she also read the antimony sections of this book.

Professor William Shotyk, of Heidelberg University, provided information about antimony, and also checked the chapters on that element.

C. Harrison Townsend, of Vancouver, Canada, told me about the fur-trappers who were poisoned to death by snow.

Dr Michael Utidjian, of Wayne, New Jersey, provided lots of interesting items about arsenic and mercury.

Dr Trevor Watts, Head of Department of Kings College Dental School, checked the section on dental amalgams.

Dick Braendle, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, for information about the early use of TEL.

Introduction

An earlier book of mine The Shocking History of Phosphorus (published as The Thirteenth Element in the USA) dealt with the way that that dangerous element had impinged on human beings over the centuries. There were chapters on its environmental impact, together with those on its uses, misuses, and abuses in everyday life not least by murderers. These chapters provided most of the human interest stories and it was this that led me to think about other dark elements and The Elements of Murder is the result. Just as with phosphorus, the story of the dangerously toxic elements began in the days of alchemy when for hundreds of years they were used in vain attempts to discover a way of creating unlimited wealth via the Philosophers Stone, or securing health and longevity via the Elixir of Life. Of course both searches failed but along the way these alchemical experiments poisoned famous scientists and even killed a king, as we shall discover.

There are currently 116 chemical elements in the periodic table. Thirty of them are unstable and dangerously radioactive and are rarely encountered outside nuclear facilities or research laboratories. Thankfully most of the remainder are harmless, but some are moderately toxic and a few are highly toxic. There are about 80 elements that comprise the Earths crust and each of us has detectable traces of all of them in our body including gold, platinum, and even uranium. We also have measurable amounts of the poisonous elements such as arsenic, mercury, and lead and these are the ones which most of this book is about. Before you begin your journey into the darker side of the periodic table it may be helpful to know a little about the chemical composition of the human body. This requires 25 chemical elements for its growth and maintenance, and these are called the essential elements. They are listed in the Appendix on page 386.

As you might expect, the toxic elements antimony, lead, mercury, and thallium are not essential, although arsenic might be the jury is still out on that one but there are elements that are both essential and highly toxic, such as fluorine, selenium, and chromium. Even elements such as sodium and potassium can be deadly under certain circumstances. Elements like these will be dealt with in the final chapter of the book.