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The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison, by John Emsley
Reviewed by F. Bartow Culp, Head of the Mellon Library of Chemistry at Purdue and associate professor, Purdue University

Some mystery authors write their stories based on days of the week or letters of the alphabet, but John Emsley has a potentially richer source of inspiration: the periodic table. Emsley, who was a chemistry lecturer at London University, and is now the Science Writer in Residence at Cambridge University (both in the United Kingdom), has successfully mined Mendeleev’s table in at least nine previous works. Of particular note is his earlier book, The Elements; it is a brief and readable account of the history and properties of the building blocks of nature and a staple on library reference shelves around the world. More recently, he has been reaching for a wider audience with enticing titles such as The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus, and Molecules at an Exhibition. In Emsley’s latest excursion in this realm, The Elements of Murder, the book’s dust jacket features a sinister Dr. Moriarty look-alike clutching a poison vial with the atomic symbols As, Pb, Hg, and Tl floating above it. Dear, dear—what will staid old Oxford University Press do next—graphic anime stories? Bodice busters with Fabio on the cover?

When you get past the cover, however, you will be rewarded with a mostly fascinating and wide-ranging romp through the past and present of poisoning—both accidental and purposeful—featuring the above-mentioned elements, plus Sb (which may have drifted behind Dr. Moriarty’s head). Emsley leads off with a brief account of the discovery of the poisonous elements mercury, arsenic, and antimony by [Doremus, Charles A. The Chemical History of a Case of Combined Antimonial and Arsenical Poisoning. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1895, 17 (9), 667-682.] alchemists and their sometimes fatal intersections while in search of the philosopher’s stone. Emsley’s description of the probable cause of King Charles II’s death by acute mercury poisoning while the monarch was in his private laboratory trying to improve the Royal Bottom Line is a good example of the author’s ability to pull together disparate bits of history and evidence to make a convincing case.

The rest of the book proceeds, element by element—mercury, arsenic, antimony, lead, and thallium—with Emsley mixing the chemical nature and action of the substances with detailed, graphic, and sometimes amusing instances of their effects. It is fascinating to read how nearly all of these elements and their compounds were used to treat ailments up to (and sometimes including) the present. Mercury, arsenic, and antimony salts were used to treat everything from fevers to syphilis, and thallium acetate was a widely used depilatory until the middle of the last century. (Another thallium salt, the tasteless sulfate, was Saddam Hussein’s preferred method of removing not hair but his enemies and rivals during the 1980's.) Emsley also describes the “perpetual pill”, a pellet of antimony that, when swallowed, irritated the bowel, thereby providing relief from constipation. The pellet was then retrieved from the feces, washed, and reused.

In examples of an element’s use in murder most foul, Emsley occasionally goes into overlong and repetitive detail, but in general, they are lively and fascinating accounts of a mostly bygone and somewhat romantic (in an Agatha Christie-like fashion) time. The most interesting is the somewhat archly titled “Ye Poysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury”. Sir Thomas, an intimate (in more ways than one) of King James I, got stuck on the wrong side of a romantic and political feud and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. His enemies tried to sequester him permanently by poisoning his food with arsenic, but Sir Thomas survived not one but three such attempts. He was finally dispatched by a powerful dose of mercury(II) chloride, administered as an enema.

Of course, more people have become ill or died as the result of accidental poisonings by these substances, and Emsley gives several such examples, historic and modern. One particularly serious and ongoing problem he describes is the arsenic contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh (see Environ. Sci. Technol. 2005, 39, 299–303) that has poisoned more than 30 million people.

The book also contains a final chapter on a few other elemental bad actors, a glossary that explains technical terms in detail, an extensive bibliography, and a good (but not great) index.

For the most part, Emsley has carried off the difficult task of mixing good science with good narrative; however, he was not well served by his editor. The book contains a few technical mistakes—a reference to the “negatively charged fluorine atom”, for example—and quite a few grammatical and spelling lapses.

But these quibbles are small; the book is an enjoyable read for both scientists and laypeople. I’m looking forward to such future titles from Emsley as Who Moved My Carbon? and The Morning Mists of Lanthanum.

Comments about this review? Interested in writing a review for LiveWire? Contact Doug Storm at d_storm@acs.org.

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