Deborah Blum Quotes

“The first hospital building had been constructed there in 1811; only eight years later Bellevue became the first U.S. hospital to formally require a qualified physician to pronounce a death (after a desperately ill man had been discovered among the corpses stacked on the morgue wagon).”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“The current head of that ward, an alienist named Menas Gregory, had been trying for years to change that haunted reputation. He angrily defended people in his care, many of whom had been brought in against their will when their families had them declared crazy. The lost occupants of his ward needed help, Gregory argued, not mockery, not groundless fear. He worried at how slow people accepted that, even in his own institution. 'There is, at the present time, no place where these patients may receive proper treatment.”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“This work, which I may term 'organization,'' has apparently not been tried before, Norris wrote to Hylan, displaying his contempt for the previous system.”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“Norris was particularly exasperated by a report that loosely blamed a man's death on wood alcohol. The document stated that the victim had been drinking heavily in the hours before his collapse. He'd also been stricken with sudden blindness (a classic symptom of wood alcohol poisoning) several hours before lapsing into a coma. The death certificate listed wood alcohol poisoning as a 'more than probable' cause.
But 'more than probable' was hardly a professional opinion, Norris said. [...]”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“[...] Another groggy patron wrote, about a night of clubbing: the bartender 'brought me some Benedictine and the bottle was right. But the liqueur was curious -- transparent at the top of the glass, yellowish in the middle and brown at the base . . . Oh, what dreams seemed to result from drinking it . . . That is the bane of speakeasy life. You ring up your friend the next morning to find out whether he is still alive.”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“His thick eyebrows drew together in a familiar frown. The blood pooled around the half-body was a bright cherry red. He bent to look closer at the woman's face. It was flushed pink, even following this horrible death. Norris's reaction was recorded by a crime writer and would later become part of his often theatrical legend. He walked over to the waiting detectives and announced, 'Boys, you can't hold this man for murder.”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“The photographer had a camera strapped around one leg, attached to a cable that ran up his trouser leg and into a pocket. He could squeeze a bulb in his pocket to take one picture which would be unnoticed in the glare of sparks and the horror generated by the chair.”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“The painters were teenage girls and young women who became friendly during their hours together and entertained themselves during breaks by playing with the paint. They sprinkled the luminous liquid in their hair to make their curls twinkle in the dark. They brightened their fingernails with it. One girl covered her teeth to give herself a Cheshire cat smile when she went home at night. None of them considered this behavior risky.”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

“His son, Joseph, an organic chemist, had once announced that he'd decided early on against forensic toxicology: he could never have so many lives and deaths on his conscience. His father understood him. Because sometimes the dead did walk in Alexander Gettler's sleep, sometimes they rattled in the black chair of Sing Sing, and always, as he admitted in that last vulnerable interview, 'I keep asking myself, have I done everything right?”
― Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York