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Deborah Blum

Deborah Blum Quotes

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Famous Deborah Blum Quotes

“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.”

PhotographerNonfictionPictureCameraElectric ChairDeborah Blum
Book:The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
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“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.”

NonfictionPaintersDeborah BlumCheshire CatRadiumRadium Girls
Book:The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
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“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?”

NonfictionInterviewDeborah BlumForensicAlexander GettlerForensic Toxicology
Book:The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
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