This was one of many fatal poisoning tales that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Blum shared during a lecture on Monday.
Many of these stories come from her 2010 book, "The Poisoner's Handbook," which she wrote in the style of a murder mystery novel from the perspectives of the New York team. Each chapter explores a historical poisoning case involving a distinct deadly substance ranging from arsenic to morphine.
Corruption was rampant in the coroner's office in New York in the 1920s, often obfuscating the true causes of deaths.
"Many death certificates would just say act of God,'" Blum said. "In some cases, the same death certificate would cite both an auto accident and diabetes as causes of death."
In addition to corruption, Norris and Gettler also had to deal with the era's general lack of medical knowledge. In order to find indicators for alcohol intoxication at the time of death, Norris had to dissect over 6,000 brains.
"Every week, he would buy 300 livers and inject them with various compounds to observe the effects," she said.
One of Norris's particular challenges was determining how specific poisons affected humans. For example, arsenic was long considered the perfect poison, Blum said.
"Its progression mimicked natural illnesses," she said. "It couldn't be detected, so no one could tell if you poisoned anyone."
When chemists like Norris began to discover ways to detect arsenic in corpses, however, murderers began favoring poisonous plants.
Nicotine and other plants are fatal in their pure forms. Blum discussed how leaded gas was conclusively proven to endanger to human health in 1925. Consequently, the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania all banned the sale of leaded gas by 1926.
Major car companies pleaded with President Coolidge, and the government hired scientists to publish findings that leaded gas was not poisonous a year later. This publication led to 50 more years of lead poisoning, she said.
"These are all issues we still see," she said. "Corporations still behave the same way. We can learn a lot from how people grappled with this in the '20s."
Three years since she published "The Poisoner's Handbook," Blum is still discussing the book at scheduled appearances.
"Journalists normally have short attention spans. I have written about the biology of gender preferences, the science of love and affection and many other topics," she said. "I have always moved on from those topics, but this topic matters to me too much. There are too many good stories to tell."
A number of middle and high schools across the country incoporate Blum's book into their curriculums to spark students' interest in chemistry.
The Dartmouth branch of the congressionally mandated Superfund Research Program is a leading expert on aresnic poisoning.
"There is actually quite a bit of arsenic in food products," director Bruce Stanton said. "Food manufacturers put [brown rice syrup sweetener, which contains arsenic] in toddler foods and children are exposed to toxic chemicals."
Stanton said he was glad to learn more about Blum's interests in arsenic poisoning and honored to have her speak to the College.
The lecture was sponsored by the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program.
