Page 17 - Pharmacy History 31 Mar 2007

The rich topic Emsley has ably essayed is endlessly fascinating.
One could ask for more in almost every direction — more substances, more forensics, more case studies, more on treatment and antidotes. Recently renewed interest in Sydney’s famous Bogle Chandler case and the mystery regarding the cause of the illicit lovers’ deaths is one suggestion of this. The recent London murder
of former Russian KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko by persons so far unknown by polonium 210 is another. In this case, not only is there the radioactive trail from London
to Moscow, 210Po, the Curies’ very rare element, weight for weight, is millions of times more toxic than
hydrocyanic acid and its lethal dose is measured in nanograms, the LD50 being given as 50ng. There is also
the difficulty of manufacture, world annual production being measured in grams rather than tonnes and the teasing fact of its short half-life, 138 days, meaning that the fatal dose was of recent manufacture, a fact which may be very useful for the sleuths. (Deaths from the 1950s involving this substance, accidental poisonings, were hushed up, while the leukaemia death of the Curies’ daughter Irene was probably due to polonium.) Reading Emsley’s book sent me
back a number of times to my 24th edition [1958] of Martindale’s Extra Pharmacopoeia and reminded me
of how its toxicity accounts had fascinated me as a pharmacy student. It also reminded of the vanished terminology, mercurous and mercuric rather than the current mercury II etc. Nice nostalgia.
For those who do not know, John Emsley’s other titles include The Shocking History of Phosphorous and Vanity, Vitality and Virility.
Reviewed by Gregory Haines
Head, JCM Centre, St Ignatius’ College Riverview
Honorary Fellow, Australian Academy of Pharmacy History. January 2007
In a dispensary
0h!, who shall say where Romance is, if Romance is not here?
For here are Colour, Death and Sleep and Magic everywhere !
Glistening salts, and shimmering scales, and crystals of purest white,
High on the shelves in their spotless rows, enclosed in their bottles bright, Salts of iron of palest green, or deepening down to brown,
And many a tincture, many a wine, from far-off lands unknown....
Light as a promise, and bitter as sin – that feathery foam, Quinine
And sedate beside it, in silver and black, the sea born Iodine;
Soon shall it merge to orange and brown in a rich and widening hue Which perchance, in far-off Tyrian days, the old Phoenicians knew.
Here heavy syrups, thick and sweet, prepared with skill and toil,
And there distilled in precious drops, stands many a spiced oil:
Lavender, Nutmeg and Sandalwood; Cinnamon, Clove and Pine,
While above, in palest primrose hue, the Flowers of Sulphur shine.
And high on the wall, beneath lock and key the powers of the Quick and Dead: Little low bottles of blue and green, each with a legend red.
In the depths beneath their slender necks, there is Romance, and to spare:
Oh !: who shall say where Romance is, if Romance is not here?
From the Borgias time to the present day, their power has been proved and tried:
Monkshood blue, called Aconite, and the deadly cyanide!
Here is sleep and solace and soothing of pain - courage and vigour new:
Here is menace and murder and sudden death’. - in these phials of green and blue:
Here are copper salts that shame the heavens and sparkle deep and blue, And never a Mediterranean Sea shall match their Sapphire hue:
And oh: the many dazzling dyes - the golden-hued Flavine and the fine bronze dust that shall turn at will to a glory of Brilliant Green:
A philtre of Love - a philtre of Death – were they only a Sorcerer’s lore?
To catch the pence, and trap the fool? Or were they something more? Beware of the Powers that never die though,
Men may go their way,
The Power of the Drug, for good or ill, shall it ever pass away?
Agatha Christie
volume 3 ■ no 31 ■ MARCH 2007
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 17