Although some aspects of their personal lives are described, the reader never gets to know them well enough except as tireless investigators, with Norris as a committed chief examiner who used some of his own money to buy equipment and keep his division working properly despite the blatant corruption in New York City's government. The initial chapters also introduce the figures of Norris and Gettler. The first few chapters address some of the political movement behind Prohibition and how it led to a string of wood alcohol poisoning cases. The story narrated by Blum takes place between 19. Each poison is connected with short stories, along with advances in forensic toxicology associated with it. Each chapter is named after a poison: chloroform, wood alcohol, cyanides, arsenic, mercury, carbon monoxide (parts I and II), methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, and thallium. ![]() The book is divided into 11 chapters, an introduction, and an epilogue. The subtitle Murder and Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York seems like a marketing strategy because jazz is rarely mentioned in the book. Both men performed innovative lab work, helped advance the science of forensics, and saved numerous lives by establishing the toxicity of previously unknown poisons. Norris was New York City's first medical examiner, and Gettler was his toxicologist. Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer Deborah Blum has created a larger story structured like a set of short stories in which the villains are the poisons and the heroes are Dr. ![]() The science of forensic toxicology was not well developed yet, and many death certificates were issued without properly identifying the cause of death. ![]() At the beginning of the twentieth century it was common to administer poisons to get rid of unwanted people, or simply to ingest poisons by accident.
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