A gripping and perplexing history of arsenic
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Just a you have finished reading how arsenic became a mass murderer in the eighteenth century as a dye for wall paper and a popular cure for all sorts of ailments, and how it finally had been denounced by the year 1900, then Andrew Meharg, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Aberdeen, makes his most perplexing point. People are still dying of arsenic, in droves.
Polluted surface water in Bangladesh has led to the construction of thousands of wells in the country, striking underground water layers replete with arsenic. It is still unclear how many millions of people are affected, imbibing overdoses of arsenic on a daily basis. Bangladesh is not the only nation affected. In the developed world the United States have a poor record of controlling arsenic concentrations in tap water. Mr Meharg advises visitors to Nevada especially to stick with bottled water.
Strictly speaking, 'Venomous earth', is a thoroughly researched history book, covering its subject from the Roman emperor Nero to recent times. But it leaves the reader perplexed at such a poisoning going on on such a baffling scale.
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