i stopped in for a beer
I finished The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York on my commute home last evening. I enjoyed it a lot. It's an easy to read look at the beginnings of forensic toxicology and the formation of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of NYC in the early part of the 20th century. I never took chemistry in high school or college, but this was pretty easy to understand even without having any real background in science, and an interesting angle on Prohibition (they weren't for it, to put it mildly) and the damage it wreaked on the population, and some stuff about the politics of NYC in terms of the mayor always being at odds with the CME. Plus, some really interesting murders, if you like true crime stuff. Also, I think it helps if, like me, you're not a very visual person, so you don't have to actually visualize all the ...stuff that Gettler does with corpses and organs in his experiments. If you're easily squicked by that kind of stuff, this might not be the book for you. Otherwise, I recommend it; it's highly engrossing (um, no pun intended?).
It's kind of stunning to me to see how far science has come since the 1920s, in terms of medicine and health. I can't get over the fact that people were drinking tonics made with radium and using other severely toxic chemicals in their personal grooming products. like, you read about lead-based makeup leading to people getting sick etc. in the 18-19th centuries and it's like, wow, that was a long time ago, but no! People were drinking radium and using thallium as a depilatory in the 1920s and 1930s! Along with drinking denatured wood alcohol in order to get drunk because Prohibition made the real stuff too hard to come by!
I can only imagine what someone in 2080 is going to think looking back at us, and seeing what we consider the latest in scientific advancement as just more snake oil and quackery.
In other news, work is kind of exploding, so I don't think I'll get to the teeny icon ficlets until the weekend. Um, oops? I will try, though.
Also, the LJ scrapbook is kaput, huh? I knew they were doing something to "improve" it, but I didn't think it would be by making me unable to access my pictures at all.
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This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/327152.html.
people have commented there.
It's kind of stunning to me to see how far science has come since the 1920s, in terms of medicine and health. I can't get over the fact that people were drinking tonics made with radium and using other severely toxic chemicals in their personal grooming products. like, you read about lead-based makeup leading to people getting sick etc. in the 18-19th centuries and it's like, wow, that was a long time ago, but no! People were drinking radium and using thallium as a depilatory in the 1920s and 1930s! Along with drinking denatured wood alcohol in order to get drunk because Prohibition made the real stuff too hard to come by!
I can only imagine what someone in 2080 is going to think looking back at us, and seeing what we consider the latest in scientific advancement as just more snake oil and quackery.
In other news, work is kind of exploding, so I don't think I'll get to the teeny icon ficlets until the weekend. Um, oops? I will try, though.
Also, the LJ scrapbook is kaput, huh? I knew they were doing something to "improve" it, but I didn't think it would be by making me unable to access my pictures at all.
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This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/327152.html.
people have commented there.