Poisons, Toxins, and Chemical Weapons
The Poisoner’s Handbook is a book written by Deborah Bloom that details the first scientifically trained medical examiner, Charles Norris, and Alexander Gettler, New York City's first toxicologist's work on the poisoning cases of the Jazz Age. I, personally read the chapter on arsenic, an element often used through consumption it was difficult to taste. It was given the nickname "The Inheritance Powder" since many have used it to kill their wealthy predecessors. In 1875, one woman named Mary Ann Cotton killed 15 people, including all of the children of her five husbands, and many neighbors who annoyed her, using arsenic. After my peers had explained to me the chapters they had read I understood that in the 1920's many people weren't aware that poisonous substances could be found in easily attainable products but as time went on people realized these things were dangerous and added precautions and prohibitions to help save many peoples' lives.
In the beginning of the year we were taught about chemical weapons by an EOD technician. The main thing I learned from the lecture was that there are two types of chemical weapons: incapacitating and toxic. Incapacitating weapons cause vomiting while toxic weapons cause victims to choke. While no good came out of the use of chemical weapons, the outcome allowed the creation of the Geneva Conventions, a series of documents that prohibit the use of chemical weapons in both war and peace time. I also separately researched the chemical weapon known as soman. Soman was created in 1944 by the German scientist, Richard Kuhn and its latest use was in the Iran-Iraqi War by the Iraqi government against Iran. Soman works by causing the inactivation of an enzyme that breaks apart another chemical that acts as a bridge between adjacent nerve cells, and so allows a nerve impulse to flow. Because the bridging chemical remains intact, nerve impulses cannot be controlled or turned off. The symptoms are watery and painful eyes, coughing, rapid breathing, diarrhea, confusion, headache, slow or fast heart rate, and, in severe cases, unconsciousness, convulsions, and respiratory failure.