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Poisons
- From Hemlock to Botox and the Killer Bean Calabar
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
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Poisons
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Editorial reviews
Who knew that poisons were so pervasive throughout history? As author Peter Macinnis points out, human beings were born of poison, and according to this audiobook, quite a few of them have died of its effects as well.
Narrator Stephen Hoye places the listener in Roman and medieval landscapes where poison was the most efficient way to dispatch one’s political enemies. This actor turned audiobook performer has a resounding, at times wry, delivery that won him a 2011 Best Voice in Biography and History award.
Part world history and part natural history, Poisons provides ample romance and intrigue while also fleshing out the popular science behind impactful poisons from arsenic to THC.
Publisher's summary
A wide-ranging and provocative look - teeming with little-known facts and engaging stories - at a subject of the direst interest.
Poisons permeate our world. They are in the environment, the workplace, the home. They are in food, our favorite whiskey, medicine, well water. They have been used to cure disease as well as incapacitate and kill. They smooth wrinkles, block pain, stimulate, and enhance athletic ability. In this entertaining and fact-filled audiobook, science writer Peter Macinnis considers poisons in all their aspects. He recounts stories of the celebrated poisoners in history and literature, from Nero to Thomas Wainewright, and from the death of Socrates to Hamlet and Peter Pan. He discusses the sources of various poisons - from cyanide to strychnine, from Botox to ricin and Sarin gas - as well as their detection.
Then he analyzes the science of their action in the body and their uses in medicine, cosmetics, war, and terrorism. With wit and precision, he weighs such questions as: Was Lincoln’s volatility caused by mercury poisoning? Was Jack the Ripper an arsenic eater? Can wallpaper kill? For anyone who has ever wondered and been afraid to ask, here is a rich miscellany for your secret questions about toxins.
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- 65 All New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life
- By: Dr. Joe Schwarcz
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Interesting anecdotes and engaging tales make science fun, meaningful, and accessible. Separating sense from nonsense and fact from myth, these essays cover everything from the ups of helium to the downs of drain cleaners and provide answers to numerous mysteries, such as why bug juice is used to color ice cream and how spies used secret inks. Mercury in teeth, arsenic in water, lead in the environment, and aspartame in food are discussed.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Very cavalier attitude
- By Paula on 11-14-14
By: Dr. Joe Schwarcz
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The Moth in the Iron Lung
- A Biography of Polio
- By: Forrest Maready
- Narrated by: Forrest Maready
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 441
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 383
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 382
A fascinating account of the world’s most famous disease - polio - told as you have never heard it before. Epidemics of paralysis began to rage in the early 1900s, seemingly out of nowhere. Doctors, parents, and health officials were at a loss to explain why this formerly unheard-of disease began paralyzing so many children. Why did this disease start to become such a horrible problem during the late 1800s? Why did it affect children more often than adults? Why was it originally called teething paralysis by mothers and their doctors?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Root Cause
- By Circlekay1 Gulfport MS on 10-24-19
By: Forrest Maready
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Napoleon's Buttons
- 17 Molecules That Changed History
- By: Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 301
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 263
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 264
Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of 17 groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Wish one of the authors would have read this book
- By A.J. on 03-09-12
By: Penny Le Couteur, and others
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,481
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,536
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,534
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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The Poisoner's Handbook
- Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
- By: Deborah Blum
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,528
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,908
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,897
In The Poisoner's Handbook, Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating book marred by production errors
- By Reagan Kelly on 03-02-10
By: Deborah Blum
-
Pandemic
- Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Sonia Shah
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 380
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 334
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 333
Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
You will probably enjoy "Spillover" more
- By serine on 03-01-16
By: Sonia Shah
-
The Family That Couldn't Sleep
- A Medical Mystery
- By: D.T. Max
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 479
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 263
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 266
For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. What these strange conditions share is their cause: prions.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A great scientific mystery
- By David on 11-04-06
By: D.T. Max
-
Get Well Soon
- History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
- By: Jennifer Wright
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,721
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 8,015
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,982
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Didn't know syphilis could be so fascinating.
- By Kindle Customer on 02-09-17
By: Jennifer Wright
-
Gulp
- Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
- By: Mary Roach
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,895
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,439
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,444
Best-selling author Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. Roach takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: The questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts?
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Funtastic Voyage
- By Mel on 04-05-13
By: Mary Roach
-
The Royal Art of Poison
- Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul
- By: Eleanor Herman
- Narrated by: Susie Berneis
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,528
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,235
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,229
The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Relieved and surprised
- By Amber on 09-28-18
By: Eleanor Herman
-
The Secret History of the War on Cancer
- By: Devra Davis Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease. Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information, The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies, a legacy that persists to this day.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Silly Book
- By Adam Smith on 12-24-14
-
The Fever
- Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Maha Chehlaoui
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 119
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 104
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
In recent years, malaria has emerged as a cause célèbre for voguish philanthropists. Bill Gates, Bono, and Laura Bush are only a few of the personalities who have lent their names - and opened their pocketbooks - in hopes of curing the disease. Still, in a time when every emergent disease inspires waves of panic, why aren’t we doing more to eradicate one of our oldest foes? And how does a parasitic disease that we’ve known how to prevent for more than a century still infect 500 million people every year, killing nearly 1 million of them?
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Solid but not amazing account of malaria
- By S. Yates on 04-11-16
By: Sonia Shah
-
Mycophilia
- Revelations From the Weird World of Mushrooms
- By: Eugenia Bone
- Narrated by: Aimee Jolson
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 549
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 485
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 480
In Mycophilia, accomplished food writer and cookbook author Eugenia Bone examines the role of fungi as exotic delicacy, curative, poison, and hallucinogen, and ultimately discovers that a greater understanding of fungi is key to facing many challenges of the 21st century.
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1 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely awful, insufferable, racist author
- By Rs 🦇 on 11-25-19
By: Eugenia Bone
-
Ten Drugs
- How Plants, Powders, and Pills Have Shaped the History of Medicine
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,850
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,198
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,180
Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Thomas Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Engrossing to physicians & lay persons alike
- By C. White on 03-08-19
By: Thomas Hager
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The Ghost Map
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,361
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 976
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 971
This is a thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London and a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science, and the modern world.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
It was okay until the end
- By Matthew Groom on 12-04-08
By: Steven Johnson
-
Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Somewhat elemental
- By Bertha Watkins on 10-23-21
-
The Book of General Ignorance
- By: John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 425
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 320
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 320
Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British best seller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more, The Book of General Ignorance is a witty “gotcha” compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It’ll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting.
- By A. Hawkbird on 12-07-08
By: John Mitchinson, and others
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Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals, and political assassins to show how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison. From the deadly origins of the gin and tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads listeners on a fascinating tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive - or don’t.
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What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
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The Icepick Surgeon
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Science is a force for good in the world—at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing—no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.
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4 out of 5 stars
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FANTASTIC! & What’s up with all these naysayers (negative reviewers)?!
- By H. Zophie Leslea on 08-19-21
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Most Delicious Poison
- The Story of Nature's Toxins―from Spices to Vices
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- Narrated by: Noah Whiteman
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 34
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Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them?
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2 out of 5 stars
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Off topic
- By Stewart on 12-26-23
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Happy Accidents
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the 20th century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In discussing medical breakthroughs, Dr. Morton Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science. And it may just save our lives!
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't waste your money!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-20-16
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The Royal Art of Poison
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The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Relieved and surprised
- By Amber on 09-28-18
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Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals, and political assassins to show how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison. From the deadly origins of the gin and tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads listeners on a fascinating tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive - or don’t.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Computer-generated Narrator. Dated Humour.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Happy Accidents
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- Narrated by: Richard Waterhouse
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
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-
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 45
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Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the 20th century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In discussing medical breakthroughs, Dr. Morton Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science. And it may just save our lives!
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Don't waste your money!
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By: Morton A. Meyers
-
The Royal Art of Poison
- Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul
- By: Eleanor Herman
- Narrated by: Susie Berneis
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,528
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,235
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,229
The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Relieved and surprised
- By Amber on 09-28-18
By: Eleanor Herman
What listeners say about Poisons
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Catherine Carney
- 03-05-17
Better organization
Great info, entertainingly presented, but all over the place and somewhat difficult to follow. Stream of consciousness doesn't work for this kind of book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- EinsteinzVice
- 11-07-19
#MyNonFictionAddiction
Fascinating details and such interesting historical tidbits! I thoroughly enjoyed it! It went too fast for me!
!📚☕📖🙃💅⏳
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Marsha L. Woerner
- 03-03-16
Interestin compendium on poisons and their history
Any additional comments?
This was a great book! I did get kind of bored when it got into history of people poisoning each other, but when it got back to poisoning and poisons in general, it was very enlightening. I particularly liked the concept that the black plague may, in fact, not have been the bubonic plague, but it may in fact have been due to a poison from rye plants! Always intriguing to learn about more to research!
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