How Chilean arsenic eaters vindicated a classic work of crime fiction

I thought Dorothy L Sayers ’ 1930 novel Strong Poison wouldn’t stand up to modern science – but modern genetic research has just proved me wrongA little while ago I wrote about thepoisoning possibilities and probabilities in Dorothy L Sayers ’ 1930 novelStrong Poison. The premise of the murder mystery is that two people sit down to eat an arsenic-laced dinner but only one of the pair dies.I argued that, according to 1930s scientific understanding, Sayers was completely right. But modern scientific theories of arsenic poisoning would have meant that either both or neither died from their arsenic exposure in the tainted meal.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Science Drugs Dorothy L Sayers Books Crime fiction Culture Chemistry Chile Americas Source Type: news