Chapter 9 Summary and Reflection

     In chapter 9 of his book, Kean goes on to talk about the poisonous elements. This includes elements known to come from "prisoner's corridor". Those elements include thallium, lead, polonium, cadmium, and bismuth. The author then describes the horror that cadmium brought upon Japan from the Russo-Japanese War through World War II. Cadmium was deposited to water sources mostly when mining zinc, but ammunition, bombs, and planes also accounted for the poisoning. The constant dumping eventually lead to a poisoning of the rice plants, for the cadmium would soak through the rice because of the poisoned water. This, consequently, lead to the development of the itai-itai ("ouch-ouch" in Japanese) disease where people suffered tremendous pain, liver failure and extremely damaged weakened bones. It took a long for the disease to take notice where people began studying it and identifying it as a very dangerous disease.

     Thallium and bismuth are talked about also. Thallium is known to be the worst of the poisons and Kean talks about how it has been used as an assassination method. Kean also talks about a plan to poison Fidel Castro with thallium in his socks in order to have the thallium make his hair fall out and have him look frail and weak. For some reason, says Kean, the plan never went through and happened. Bismuth is then talked about and how it is a whitish metal with pink hues that burns with a blue flame and emits yellow fumes. The author mentions that bismuth has a half life of 20 billion billion years, therefore being the last element that will go extinct. Bismuth is actually pretty benign compared to the other poisonous elements as it can be used in medicine. Bismuth is today one of the ingredients in Pepto-Bismol, hence the Bis- in Bismol. This use of bismuth began when people got diarrhea from cadmium-tainted lemonade and people used bismuth as an antidote.

     The author talks about some very interesting people that have experimented with these poisonous elements. One particular creepy one was about a British man named Graham Frederick Young who experimented with thallium by sprinkling it in his family's teacups and stew pots in the 1960s. Young was sent to a mental institution where he was later released. After his release, Young poisoned seventy more people. Although Young poisoned many people, only 3 people died because Young tried to prolong the poisoning by giving his victims less-than-lethal doses of poison. Another particular interesting chap was David Hahn who tried to create Uranium-233 in his backyard with the lithium from batteries and thorium. He was eventually arrested after trying to create Thorium-233 and Protactinium-233.

     This chapter was really informative as it informed of the poisonous elements to stay away from. It was really sad reading about the poisoned people of Japan and how they suffered so much from the poisoning they were unknowingly receiving. I enjoyed reading about how thallium could have been used to stop the ruling of Fidel Castro in Cuba, but was sad to read about how the plan was never used. One thing I learned was that bismuth is used in medicine and that it's found in Pepto-Bismol. I have a question though, can one die of bismuth poisoning if they drink too much Pepto-Bismol?