contribute to a significant proportion of deaths from smoke inhalation in fires, though cyanide levels are not always specifically tested in the remains of these victims, but it is an important consideration for fire-fighters.
In addition to all of these sources, cyanide compounds can also be produced in the body by the normal decay processes that occur after death. So the post-mortem picture can be complicated by many potential sources of cyanide, some of which may have been metabolised into thiocyanate before death, and the addition of new cyanide compounds afterwards.
The best thing the pathologist in Sparkling Cyanide could have done would have been to analyse the residues left in the champagne glass. If there was enough left in the glass, the concentration of cyanide, and therefore the total dose, could have been determined. This is still the best way of determining the dose in cyanide poisoning cases today, as unpicking the amount of cyanide from environmental sources and working out the dose from post-mortem blood levels of cyanide and thiocyanate is a task full of potential errors.
Little seems to have been done for Rosemary or George to try to save or revive them. There is no mention of emergency treatment, or even of calling an ambulance to rush them to hospital. Antidotes were available in 1945 – but that would not have made for a good murder-mystery novel.
Notes
34 Though still not good to drink or wash in.
35 Books on poisons and toxicology often state that the ancient Egyptians used cyanide from peach stones as a poison. A paper published in 1938 traced these statements back to an alleged translation by Duteil of a passage in ‘an extremely ancient papyrus in the Louvre’, which is as follows: Ne prononcez pas le nom de IAO, sous la peine du pecher (‘Speak not the name of IAO [Hebrew shorthand for the name of God] under the penalty of the peach-tree’). This first appeared in an 1842 book on the history of chemistry by F. Hoefer. He claimed to be quoting Duteil but the quote has not been found in Duteil’s writing. In 1938 the Louvre had four documents that might be expected to contain such a quote, the ‘demotic magical papyrus’ and three ‘Greek magical papyri’ but they contain no such reference to the penalty of the peach. The source of the quote remains a mystery.
36 Tawell lived in London but kept his mistress in a cottage in Salt Hill, near Slough, Berkshire.
37 ‘Cyanogenic’ simply means something capable of generating hydrogen cyanide.
38 The tough seed coating will also prevent the release of much of the poison.
39 Hence we see blue veins under our skin where deoxygenated blood is being transported back to the lungs to collect more oxygen.
40 To be fair to Christie, I have read many different descriptions of the colour of corpses in cyanide poisonings. These range from flushed to ashen, though not blue.
Appointment with Death
‘Winston, if you were my husband, I would flavour your tea with poison.’
‘Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it.’
Lady Nancy Astor and Winston Churchill
The quote above is typical of the acid-tongued exchanges between Lady Nancy Astor, the first female Member of Parliament, and Winston Churchill. Agatha Christie may have been thinking of Lady Astor when she created the character Lady Mary Westholme for her 1938 novel Appointment with Death . The two certainly bear a striking resemblance; Christie claimed, however, that her inspiration for this loud and opinionated character came from two women she had met in the Far East. Another character in the novel, Dr Gerard, comments thus on Lady Westholme: ‘that woman should be poisoned … It is incredible to me that she has had a husbandfor many years and that he has not already done so.’ But it turns out not to be Lady Westholme who is poisoned; the victim is another domineering woman, Mrs Boynton.
Appointment with Death is set in Jordan, where a tourist group visits the abandoned
In addition to all of these sources, cyanide compounds can also be produced in the body by the normal decay processes that occur after death. So the post-mortem picture can be complicated by many potential sources of cyanide, some of which may have been metabolised into thiocyanate before death, and the addition of new cyanide compounds afterwards.
The best thing the pathologist in Sparkling Cyanide could have done would have been to analyse the residues left in the champagne glass. If there was enough left in the glass, the concentration of cyanide, and therefore the total dose, could have been determined. This is still the best way of determining the dose in cyanide poisoning cases today, as unpicking the amount of cyanide from environmental sources and working out the dose from post-mortem blood levels of cyanide and thiocyanate is a task full of potential errors.
Little seems to have been done for Rosemary or George to try to save or revive them. There is no mention of emergency treatment, or even of calling an ambulance to rush them to hospital. Antidotes were available in 1945 – but that would not have made for a good murder-mystery novel.
Notes
34 Though still not good to drink or wash in.
35 Books on poisons and toxicology often state that the ancient Egyptians used cyanide from peach stones as a poison. A paper published in 1938 traced these statements back to an alleged translation by Duteil of a passage in ‘an extremely ancient papyrus in the Louvre’, which is as follows: Ne prononcez pas le nom de IAO, sous la peine du pecher (‘Speak not the name of IAO [Hebrew shorthand for the name of God] under the penalty of the peach-tree’). This first appeared in an 1842 book on the history of chemistry by F. Hoefer. He claimed to be quoting Duteil but the quote has not been found in Duteil’s writing. In 1938 the Louvre had four documents that might be expected to contain such a quote, the ‘demotic magical papyrus’ and three ‘Greek magical papyri’ but they contain no such reference to the penalty of the peach. The source of the quote remains a mystery.
36 Tawell lived in London but kept his mistress in a cottage in Salt Hill, near Slough, Berkshire.
37 ‘Cyanogenic’ simply means something capable of generating hydrogen cyanide.
38 The tough seed coating will also prevent the release of much of the poison.
39 Hence we see blue veins under our skin where deoxygenated blood is being transported back to the lungs to collect more oxygen.
40 To be fair to Christie, I have read many different descriptions of the colour of corpses in cyanide poisonings. These range from flushed to ashen, though not blue.
Appointment with Death
‘Winston, if you were my husband, I would flavour your tea with poison.’
‘Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it.’
Lady Nancy Astor and Winston Churchill
The quote above is typical of the acid-tongued exchanges between Lady Nancy Astor, the first female Member of Parliament, and Winston Churchill. Agatha Christie may have been thinking of Lady Astor when she created the character Lady Mary Westholme for her 1938 novel Appointment with Death . The two certainly bear a striking resemblance; Christie claimed, however, that her inspiration for this loud and opinionated character came from two women she had met in the Far East. Another character in the novel, Dr Gerard, comments thus on Lady Westholme: ‘that woman should be poisoned … It is incredible to me that she has had a husbandfor many years and that he has not already done so.’ But it turns out not to be Lady Westholme who is poisoned; the victim is another domineering woman, Mrs Boynton.
Appointment with Death is set in Jordan, where a tourist group visits the abandoned
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