false 4 1 false false Thu Oct 01 07:16:07 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 07:28:12 -0700 2009
It's probably weird to call this a fun read, but it really is--I mean, where else are you going to find out that Bayer actually introduced heroin (even came up with the name!), which was sold as a cough syrup for about ten years before being taken off the market.

Or how about the fact that Charles Julius Guiteau (who shot President James Garfield), was given a bouquet of flowers by his sister on the morning of his execution--and when prison officials looked at the flowers, they found arsenic tucked between the petals--with author Amy Stewart then going on to list a bunch of common flowers that can possibly kill you. (Did you know tulip bulbs are so irritating that just touching them can cause a skin reaction, and florists who work with aconite have to be careful because handling the stems can possibly bring on numbness and cardiac problems?)]]>