Toxic History!

By Adam Blumenberg

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Category: History

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Subscribers: 3
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Episodes: 51

Description

Toxic History! is a narrative medicine lecture series where medical experts tell you stories from the history of poison. Human beings have known about poison – substances that harm and even kill– for thousands of years. Poisons have been seen as mysterious, supernatural, and enigmatic. What are these plants, mixtures, and elements with such powerful properties? It is only in the past century that science has begun to demystify these chemicals and explain how they work. Still, the impact they have on the world – from cultish mass suicides to chemical attacks to a single case of homicide – can be profound. Toxic History! explores the impact on society, culture, and science behind poisonous events in history.

Episode Date
Firefly Toxicosis in a Bearded Dragon
May 13, 2026
MK Ultra
Apr 08, 2026
Cat Killer in the Courtroom: The Story of Dr. Robert Buchanan
Mar 20, 2026
Bromism - A Brief Narrative History without the Bromides
Feb 22, 2026
Do Unto Myself as I would Do Unto Others
Jan 08, 2026
The FDA and the Homeopathy Loophole
Nov 27, 2025
Toxic Murderer Dr William Palmer
Oct 27, 2025
One Drop
Oct 01, 2025
Bluer than Velvet
Sep 14, 2025
Folklore, Fact, and the Manchineel Tree
Jul 10, 2025
Radiant Tragedy
May 27, 2025
The Deadly Art of Seeing Green
Apr 23, 2025
The Mary Lafarge Affair: How the ‘King of Poisons’ Lost its Crown
Mar 19, 2025
Witchcraft, Werewolves, and Flying Ointment
Feb 18, 2025
The 1943 Bombing of Bari and the Development of Alkylating Chemotherapeutics
Jan 21, 2025
The Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster
Jan 06, 2025
King George III, Manic Monarch or Noxious Nostrums?
Dec 18, 2024
Doping in the Early Olympic Marathons
Nov 19, 2024
The Frozen Addicts
Oct 17, 2024
Mining, Water, Rice, and Bone Pain
Sep 10, 2024
Abortifacients, a Historical Perspective
Aug 12, 2024
I've Been to Dwight
Jul 16, 2024
Laboratory X
Jun 21, 2024
A Stable Head with a Broken Heart
May 21, 2024
The Thalidomide Tragedy and a Path to Safer Drugs
Apr 25, 2024
Botulinum Antitoxin
Mar 27, 2024
Beyond Bicycle Day: The Story of Albert Hofmann and the Discovery of LSD
Feb 14, 2024
Did psychedelics fuel the space race? Counter culture, the occult, and mind-altering before LSD
Jan 16, 2024
The Elixir of Death
Dec 22, 2023
Radithor Radioactive Water
Nov 03, 2023
The Salem Witch Trials and the Ergot Hypothesis
Oct 19, 2023
Bringing Deadly Sleepe: A Review of Selected Pre-1900s Toxicology Literature
Sep 22, 2023
Dioxin and the Poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko
Sep 22, 2023
Twisted Sister, a Widow's Intrigue
Jul 21, 2023
The Birds and The Brains: Domoic Acid Poisoning
Jun 23, 2023
Counting Sheep in Skull Valley
May 12, 2023
The Ordeal Bean
Mar 28, 2023
The mysterious intermittent history of the fentanyl epidemics
Feb 17, 2023
Toxic Grains
Jan 20, 2023
The Chicago Tylenol Murders
Dec 31, 2022
The Toxic Woman
Nov 12, 2022
Toxicology and Classical Music
Sep 26, 2022
Birds, Brains, and Beri Beri
Aug 15, 2022
The Angel Makers of Nagyrev
Jul 20, 2022
The Antarctic Adventure of Douglas Mawson
Jun 27, 2022
The Minamata Bay Disaster
Jun 11, 2022
The Teacup Poisner
Jun 11, 2022
The Goiânia Incident
Jun 11, 2022
King Mithradates
Jun 11, 2022
The Yew Tree
Jun 11, 2022
The Oregon State Hospital Disaster
Jun 11, 2022