Fear Nothing, Your Crime Will Go Unpunished
While the period from 1837 to 1901 is fondly remembered by most as the “Victorian Age,” it also has a much more sinister nickname in the annals of criminal history: The Golden Age of Poison. Accidental poisonings were frequent because poisonous mineral pigments such as chromium, cadmium, mercury, lead, cyanide, antimony, arsenic salts, and others often gave paint, wallpaper, food, medicine, and fabric their vibrant colors. Anyone could buy strychnine or cyanide from the local general store for pest control, and manufacturers used arsenic in everything from baby food to makeup and flour additives.
Because poison was easy to obtain, it became a favorite method of disposing of an unwanted spouse or hastening an inheritance, especially since, at the time, it was difficult to prove it had been used as the murder weapon. Moreover, the burgeoning sales of life insurance policies provided a motive for murder. To get money and life-insurance payouts, Belle Gunness, aka Hell’s Belle, used strychnine to kill as many as 40 people, including her husbands and children.
Stepping into the breach against this world of poisons and murders were men such as Spanish chemist Mathieu Orfila, who became the world’s first toxicologist in the early to mid-1800s, and Sir Thomas Stevenson, the famed British chemist from the late 1800s. Both helped solve several high-profile poisonings and were instrumental in getting the perpetrators convicted.
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