From Greek philosophers to former Russian spies, the use of poison as a means of ending a life - whether through assassination, murder, suicide or execution - has a history stretching back over 2 000 years. Even before Socrates accepted his fate by drinking hemlock, countless people must have died as a result of ingesting naturally occurring poisons. And yet poisonous materials often also have beneficial properties: hydrogen flouride, for example, is highly toxic to humans, but is also a vital component in the production of ...
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From Greek philosophers to former Russian spies, the use of poison as a means of ending a life - whether through assassination, murder, suicide or execution - has a history stretching back over 2 000 years. Even before Socrates accepted his fate by drinking hemlock, countless people must have died as a result of ingesting naturally occurring poisons. And yet poisonous materials often also have beneficial properties: hydrogen flouride, for example, is highly toxic to humans, but is also a vital component in the production of herbicides, pharmaceuticals and fluorescent light bulbs. Poison: a social history explores the nature of toxicity and reveals how poison has played a crucial and often unheralded role - for good and for bad - in human history. As well as examining a range of poisonous materials, it also contains case studies of famous, and infamous, poisonings.
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