WEBVTT - "The Poisoner's Handbook" with Author Deborah Blum Pt. 1 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:11.840 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.040 latest episode of Criminalia. For this season, we're exploring the 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.880 lives and motivations of some of the most notorious lady 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:22.080 poisoners throughout history. I'm Maria Try and I'm Holly Fry 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:25.759 and today we have a special guest with us, Deborah Blum. 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.280 Deborah is amazing and you've probably heard of her if 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.960 you follow Poison at All. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.800 science journalist. She is the author of six books. She 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.440 is also now the director of the night Science Journalism 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.640 program at M I T. And we worship her. So 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:45.880 we have light resume there, nothing to check the box 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:47.720 at the watch. But we have her here with us 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:52.120 today because she is the author of the New York 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.080 Times notable book Poison Squad and the New York Times 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:01.040 bestseller The Poisoner's Handbook. Deborah, welcome. Do you want to 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.000 add anything to let us know who you are? Our 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:10.920 poison expert extraordinaire here, Like, just overwhelmed by how nice 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:16.480 you guys are. Really a pleasure to be here, and 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:21.199 you know you're cover so many of my favorite subjects. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.959 It's actually fun for me not to be talking about 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.320 how to run a remote fellowship program in the time 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:34.800 of and I imagine so talking about how to kill 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:41.280 people and other things that are more interested about arsenic symptoms. Listen, Love, 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:47.800 We're gonna talk to you about some arsenic You are, 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:50.840 of course, very well known as a journalist, and your 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.720 love of science has driven so much of your work. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.240 Will you talk about how you ended up writing about science, science, history, 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:02.240 and specifically poison, George, that's great territory for me to 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.480 cover and and you know, just stopped me. I grew 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.560 up in the South and Louisiana and Georgia, so I'm 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.400 perfectly capable of going on about this stuff, you know, 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.920 for the until the end of time. So if I 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.600 do this. So I'm a failed chemistry major. My dad 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.320 was an entomologist and chemical ecologist at the University of Georgia. 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.720 And I and I when I started college, I wanted 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.840 to be a chemist. And I discovered the some of 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.240 the things that make me a good journalist, you know, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.639 having a short attentions man, uh, not working at all 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.200 in the laboratory. And and I was actually a danger 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.680 to myself and others. I set my hair on fire 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.600 in one memorable afternoon, and also at one point generated 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.120 speaking of a poison, a toxic cloud that caused them 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.920 to have to evacuate the freshman chemistry lab. Your very first, 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.320 very early age, right. So, but you know, so I 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.440 went into ournalism because for the same reason that I 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.640 like chemistry, I like to know how things work. And 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.840 then eventually realized, after several years of working for newspapers 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.480 that I really wanted to combine both of those loves, 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.600 my interest knowing how things work scientifically my interest in 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:22.920 knowing how things work in society. Got a grad degree 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.960 in science journalism with a specialty and environmental toxicology, and 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.360 went off to be a science writer in California, which 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.480 was where I won the bullets er. Although that was 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.480 writing about primate research, right, um, but that launched me 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:40.560 into writing books, and I continued to write books. I 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.480 kept saying to my agent, I've had the same edge 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.000 and ever since I started writing books, and she's wonderful. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.600 I kept saying, you know, I'd really like to write 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:54.040 a book in which poisons are characters, because partly because 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.440 I was grounded in chemistry, and partly because I like murder. 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.280 I grew up with Agatha Christie and a lot of 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.200 early murder mystery writer is Agatha Christian in particular, who 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.000 really did a lot of work with poisons um because 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.040 she had worked in a hospital dispensary in World War One. 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.880 UM And and she kept saying, oh, no, Devra, I 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:15.920 have a better idea, no deveror you could do this, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:21.039 and finally, or books, and She's like, I can't take 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.960 it anymore. It's like the slow drip of torture. Let's 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.920 let you write the book that you wanted, right and 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:34.480 so and she said, um, just right, and and this 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:36.800 I have had the same editor for the last three books. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.359 She said, don't write a proposal, just write a delicious 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.440 little two page letter to your editor. And I thought 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.000 that would be so interesting to sell a book writing 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.839 two pages. So I wrote a proposal on the idea 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:51.960 that I was not going to kill my husband but 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:59.960 I could, and a lot of stuff that I knew 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.839 about poisons at the time. And my editor at Penguin 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.880 Press bought the book. And then this is my advice 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.640 to everyone who listens to this focus. Don't be me 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.400 and don't do this, because then I sold the book. 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:15.880 I immediately spent the advance and and I'm like, well, 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:17.880 what's this book really about. I can't write a book 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.240 about how to poison my husband. That wouldn't be good. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:26.800 And so I then went into this frantic research that 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.120 led me to find the two scientists who are at 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.840 the heart of Poisoner's Handbook, which does indeed do what 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.440 I had originally thought about, which was both tell their 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.440 story but also look at poisons as the fascinating characters 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:43.720 and the personalities that I think they have, which is 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.120 a very science journalist way of seeing things. I love 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.479 writing about science, and I love writing about chemistry, and 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:55.240 I actually like writing about really dangerous substances because I 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.919 think and that we need the too us to navy 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.200 get a chemical world. We live in a chemical world. 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:07.000 I am a collection of chemicals myself. I'm inhaling them 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.560 as we speak, as are all of us. Most of 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.960 them are not dangerous, but most people don't have the 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:15.600 kind of toolkit to say what should it be I'd 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.480 be afraid of? And how do I protect myself? And 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.080 what should I not? And so a lot of what 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.840 I think science journalists like myself do. All I hope 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.960 we do is to provide people who are not, you know, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.960 right at the science inner circle, or don't follow it regularly, 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:35.839 some of the tools that just let them navigate in 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.560 an intelligent way because they are smart, they just need 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:43.239 the tools. And that's really underlies my love of science 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.560 journalism and is probably one of the reasons I'm here 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.680 at in I t So that's my long Southern answer. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:54.599 I love it as I thought it would be. Um So, 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.200 one of the hurdles that we often have when we're 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:01.960 preparing our episodes is sometimes the sparse sinus of historical 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.160 records just there's nothing out there, or if it is 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.080 out there, there might be two or three sources and 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.040 they all conflict with each other. Um. I imagine that 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.720 you have come across the same challenge. And um I 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:14.400 was wondering if you could talk a little bit over 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.040 the years of writing about science history, how he worked 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.360 around that kind of challenge. Oh, I'm gonna love answering this. 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:26.840 Um Uh, you know, well, real the inner nerd that 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.200 I am, I guess um And and that reminds me. 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.160 You know, I've done four books now that are narrative 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:37.800 histories of science too about toxicology. But I love writing 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.160 about history of science history in general. But because I 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.480 don't think you really understand where you are unless you 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.960 know how you got there, and that would be and 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.120 and that's another part of you know, how did I 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.720 get here? It's certainly true one of the lessons for me, 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.320 especially in the Poison Squad book, which is about the 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.360 invention of food safety in the United States, and that 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:03.280 history both explain how we came up with the idea that, 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.120 you know, we should regulate for food safety, but also 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.240 why we do it so badly on a number of 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:14.080 levels even today. So having said that, you know, it's 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.160 a real challenge depending on what you're writing about. When 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.640 I did Poison Squad, the minor recent book, Harvey Washington Wiley, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:24.680 who was the chemist at the heart of that story, 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.480 had been married to a suffragette librarian. I just love that, 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.679 and she had left all of his papers to the 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:38.240 Library of Congress. So the in that case, because I 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.720 like to work from original documents, um, it was a 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.280 matter of did I have enough time to go through 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.880 four hundred linear feet of Harvey Washington wilt papers and 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.640 documents and newspaper clippings and memos and letters and trying 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:53.920 to figure out how to be smart that I mean, 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.280 you don't always infect you must never get that right. 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.559 But in that particular, as I was a wash in 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:06.920 a see of documents which was super helpful, um and 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.880 also daunting Poisoner's Handbook, I think better gets at that 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.840 the some of the challenges that you mentioned. So as 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:19.000 I said, I, UM, when I finally, after some fairly 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:24.880 hysterical months of research, discovered in the in the newsletters 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:30.400 of the Society Forensic Toxicology that the toxicologists at the 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.360 heart of that book, Alexander Getler is considered the father 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:38.040 of American forensic toxicology. UM, I thought, oh, this is great. 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.280 I'll just go find a biography of him, and there 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.000 was none. And then I went and looked for a 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.120 biography of his boss, Charles Norris, who was the you know, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:52.120 wonderful and pioneering first uh medical examiner in New York City, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.360 and there was none. Right, And so I'm like trolley 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.640 around trying to find information about these eyes, which was 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:05.679 the other challenge. And so after much going through and 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.360 then some of it you can be smart about. You 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.959 can go onto you know, and look at what were 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.920 the contemporary toxicology books, the books about legal medicine published 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.040 in the early twentieth century. And I bought a lot 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.920 of those, um from used booksellers, and I have some 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.960 of them to this day. UM. But and then you 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.720 can look at contemporary journals. I did that too, So 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:30.800 I can go into the Journal of the American Medical 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.800 Association or Science of the Journal of Toxicology and look 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.880 for papers published by Alexander Getler. And that was really 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.680 essential for me in trying to both understand or look 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.280 for papers about arsenic what did we know about arsenic 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.120 and nine? Right, So all of that kind of helps 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.920 provide a foundation. But then you start kind of saying, well, 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.319 are there other archives that have some materials? So in 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.600 this case, and this is one of my favorite stories 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.960 about the challenges of working with archives and very different 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.760 from the Library of Congress, I discovered that the New 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:09.400 York City Municipal Archives had actually archived the letters of 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.480 the Medical Examiner's Office from nineteen eighteen to nineteen thirty five, 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.760 just the period with Norris though. Oh, this is fantastic, 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:19.839 and I talked on the phone to an archive is 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.480 an extremely hostile and unfriendly archivist at the municipal archive. UM. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.160 But and I and it was so I'm like, oh, 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.760 I'm so excited about this and I can't wait. I'm 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.840 gonna come to New York. Let me take you out 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.160 to dinner when I get there to thank you for 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.520 your help. And he's like, we do not have to 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.400 meet in person, and so I know. But I go 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.920 to this archive, which is in an old it's like 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.960 one of the old city halls of New York and um, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.240 and it's you know, underfunded and unfriendly um as anyone 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.320 will tell you. And so I go up all shiny 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:58.920 and like I have we already look at these papers 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.960 and literally the guy the counter says to me, we 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.920 don't have those and I go, yes, you do. It 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:06.880 was just like being in kindergarten. He goes, no, we don't. 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:08.880 I go, yes, you do. He goes, no, we don't 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.280 come all the way to New York, right. UM. I said, yes, 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:14.760 you do it. In fact, here's the name of the 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.440 archivist who won't speak to me, um, and here's his 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.000 phone number, and you're welcome to contact him. And so 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.240 the guy goes off and he talks I never did 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:26.160 see the archives. UM to the archives, and then he 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.480 comes back and says, yes, we do actually have these, UM, 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.160 and so here's the forms you have to fill out 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.560 to get them. And I fell out the forms and 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:36.920 these box has come up. They've got like a dumb 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.600 waiter behind the counter and these it comes creaking up 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.199 in a very atmospheric way with these boxes of files 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:49.240 that are covered with dust and apparently some mold. Because 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.520 both my I had my one of my grand students 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.760 helping me UM when I this was when I was 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.400 at Wisconsin UH, and both of us were sick. But 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.880 the with the rest of it because we could have 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.000 out them in other ways UM. And those files were 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.679 amazing and really an unknown resource. So even when they 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.840 were working on the documentary failed a Porsoner's handbook, they 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:14.360 went back they said they had arm wrestle them out 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:18.440 to write UM. So it wasn't like I had suddenly 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.440 opened the floodgates. So once I had those, I you know, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.960 then looked at other you know, other archives, UM, and 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:30.079 I went over to the New York City Public Library. 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.120 I was doing a lot of contemporary you know what 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.800 what what was being covered about Geller and Norris and 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.719 Poisons at the time, and so I went to the 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.920 New York City Public Library because you can get through 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.040 ProQuest historical newspapers, the New York Times and a lot 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.960 of the big major dailies. But I wanted like the 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.840 Brooklyn Eagle and on small papers, and they had those 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.720 on microphis. So a lot of that was going in 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.199 and finding the stories of micro phish, which I don't recommend, 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:04.600 but we're and you know, printing them out. I did that, 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.000 and then the one other thing, and then you know, 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.679 we did interviews with um, you know, called people. There 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.840 were still a few people left too, had been students 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.480 of Getler, the Getler boys and UM. One of the 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:20.680 things I did when I was doing research, and this 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.600 will tell you just how anal or researcher I am, 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:29.000 is that I had discovered, uh been able to track 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:33.520 down Alexander Getler's kids and and their kids. And I 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.840 knew that his son Joseph had a number of grandid 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.440 kids or his grandkids who still lived in the New 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.080 York City area. UM, and I didn't have their exact 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.840 look and I did, I had their birth records, but 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.520 not their exact location. So I went to a friend 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.480 of mine who worked for a newspaper who had some 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.600 of those super search tools, and I said, if I 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.120 give you this person's name and their date of birth 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.640 and where they were born, can you find out for 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.320 me where they're living now. And she did, and she said, 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.040 you know, and don't tell anyone I did this. And 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.280 also I'm not giving you his social Security number. Please 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.720 don't give me his social Security number. Um. But basically 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.240 I had the name. It was Paul Getler, who was 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.880 one of Alexander Getler's grandkids. So I used my pages 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:27.400 and I called every single Paul Getler in that county 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.240 and I just said, Hi, my name is Debord Woe. 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.440 I'm looking for the grandson of Alexander Getler for a 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.080 book I'm working on. And eventually got him, and he 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:41.600 was fantastic, and he put me in touch with some 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.560 of his siblings, one of whom had had her daughter. 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:50.640 So Getler's great granddaughter had done a high school history 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.760 report on him, and they came to my hotel in 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:57.120 New York with her entire presentation and set up the 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.360 giant poster boards in the lobby of the hotel too, 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:05.840 I think slightly the horror people at the front desk 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.359 of the hotel. But they had like letters and journals 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.320 and all kinds of stuff that they lent me. And 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:14.960 when I went on book tour and I went back 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.960 to New York to talk about the book at a 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.760 Barnes and Noble in New York City, Um, the whole 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.600 Getler family was there, filling up the first two rows 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:31.040 of that, you know. Um. And so that was wonderful, 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.000 And that was another way that I was able to 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.200 get at resources that weren't obvious. I think people who 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:43.240 read these histories, you know, to me, they're a giant mosaic. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.000 And because I'm a narrative writer, I'm also looking for 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.000 the pieces that I can put people in the time. 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:50.840 You know, what did the city look like? What did 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.800 the city sound like? All of those things, Um, But 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:59.080 you're building this kind of tapestry or mosaic, uh and 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.160 out all of these different pistes matter, and it is 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:17.520 a ton of word. We have, as you know, talked 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.439 a lot about women poisoners this season, and I know 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.320 you have some thoughts on women and poison and why 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.439 poison is considered a women's weapon and why that's not 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.240 really an accurate characterization, Will you just share your thoughts 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.760 on that matter with us? Sure? And in fact, while 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.240 I was a blogger at Wired after I did Poisonous 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.520 Sound Book, it's been about a decade. I still do 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.560 to some extent, you know, researching and writing about poisons things. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.600 I had a blog at Wired called Elemental and a 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:50.399 blog in the New York Times called poison pen Um, 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.399 And at Wired I actually did a whole blog on 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:58.120 the myths of the female poisoner, right, which I really enjoyed. 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.880 So you know, if you go back even to like 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.840 you know, early crime fiction, when you actually looked at 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.320 the modern xt FBI statistics, you see that that's not true. 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:13.160 I mean, it's kind of women use poison more preferentially 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:17.200 over other weapons like guns and knives. Right, But if 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.720 you look at the whole panoradum of poisoners, there's more 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.240 male poisoners than female poisoners. But part of that, again 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.359 is that there's more homicidal males than homicidal females. Right, 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.800 there's just more men who killed people, is I dis 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.800 the entire um, And so there's a lot. So when 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.280 you actually look at the numbers, just the great numbers 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.959 there's more male poisoners in the United States than female poisoners. 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.560 If you analyze the use of weapons, you do see 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.160 it tilts a little more female. And it's actually interesting 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.440 because I did another book looking at biology and behavior, 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.680 and one of the things that people talk about was 0:18:56.720 --> 0:19:00.280 that consistent imbalance on violence, right, and that there had 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.679 been this idea, for instance, that as you know, guns 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.120 became more available to women, there would be more shooting 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.840 deaths caused by women than men, or it would equalize out, 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.440 but in fact it never did. Right. Women in general, 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.320 when you look at crime statistics, um, just don't commit 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.639 those kinds of crimes. And you could certainly make this 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:23.600 case I'm going on poison for a minute. If you 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.400 look at the history of mass shootings in the United States, right, 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.480 women have access to exactly the same women, but you 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.480 don't see that pattern of mass shootings, right if there's 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:38.119 just something socially, culturally, biologically, so something in the mix 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.840 that So that's why you tend to see this sort 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.560 of higher number of male poisoners, because you see a 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:47.760 higher number of male assaults and tempted deaths. But the 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.399 myth of the female poisoner probably dates back to the 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:55.960 nineteenth century UM in which poisons were highly accessible in 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:01.080 a domestic way, right, and women actually more access to 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.400 them often than men if you looked at it in 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.360 that sense, because they were the caretakers of the home 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.320 and the distribution of UH jobs in the nineteenth century, 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.920 and so um they had access for two pharmaceutical products. Right, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.560 Arsenic was quite common in UM different tonics and treatments 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.719 to improve your complexion in Victorian times. Right. Fowler's solution 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.080 is a famous example of that. You find these wonderful 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:31.280 advertisements targeting women, you know, in which they talk about, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.200 you know, how arsenic is going to make you more beautiful, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.560 and also how arsenic is entirely safe, which everyone knew 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.400 wasn't true, but you know, for some reason, they don't 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:46.600 always tell the truth in advertising. What I know him 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:52.440 and have this incredible access to cosmetics right, containing one 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:56.360 of the world's most famous and at that time handy 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.440 homicidal poisons. I mean, arsen was a fabulous poison or 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.960 poison in the nineteenth century because it's tasteless, it's odorless, 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:09.200 it mimics the symptoms of a natural illness, and because 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.560 they were just figuring out how to detect it in 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.720 a corpse. Right, so, um so, women have access to 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:17.879 this in a way, and not that a man couldn't 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.000 walk into a drug store and buy file Folwer solution, 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.639 but you know it's widely available to women. And a 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.520 lot of the home products there were cyanide and some 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.800 of the compounds that they used to like polish medal 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.639 in the house. You know, there was stryct nine and 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.200 pick me up tonics. Say mean, people had this incredible 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.960 access to these in a way that triggered no alarm 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.080 if you casually went and got something that contained arsenic 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.159 or straight nine. Um so it was super easy if 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.720 you were annoyed with your husband or your boyfriend or 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.840 or was we're trying. Arsenic used to be known as 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.560 the inheritance powder, you know, to work your way to 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.680 your inheritance to just you know, put it in coffee 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:06.679 or something, and people did. There were some quite notable 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.399 women mass poisoners in the nineteenth century like Maryanne Cotton 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.960 right who did exactly what I said us. You know, 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.280 handily available arsenic to work or to to get eliminate 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.480 relatives that stood in the way of money, to eliminate 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.760 partners so that you can inherit. I mean, I think 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:27.959 two was in the neighborhood of close to twenty by 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.160 the time they caught her, which will tell you. And 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.880 so that those kinds of you know, really stand out. 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:38.400 Mass poisonings tended to shape the idea that women did 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:42.760 this um in a way that is both you know, 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.840 has a little bit of if I are in the smoke, 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:54.479 but it's partly in largely smoke. We still have so 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.320 much more from our great chat with blond and that 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.440 is going to be next week's episode, which time thrilled 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.560 about because this is easily one of my favorite conversations 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.960 I have had all year. That's not even qualified as 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.040 in a podcast, etcetera, just in life, one of my 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.120 favorite conversations all year. And I am so glad that 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.080 she is very graciously helping us close out our season 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.440 of Poison, and with that, we're gonna do a little 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:26.440 what's your poison? Right? It actually references something that comes 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.240 up in episode two, but it also deals with stuff 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.880 that Deborah talked about, which is a prohibition era and 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:36.760 so we're doing prohibition eric cocktails for this one. And 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:39.400 what I thought might be fun for these these ones 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:40.919 as we're nearing the end of the season, is to 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:44.120 talk about kind of a classic cocktail and then how 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:47.960 you can approach them to maybe customize them to be 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.879 a little bit more attuned to your palette if they're 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:53.359 not for you as written. So, the first one is 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:58.080 a side car. A sidecar, you'll see the amounts very slightly, 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:01.520 but your basic side car is is usually one and 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.720 a half to two ounces of cognac. Anywhere from one 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.479