The Disappearing Spoon Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Poisoner's Corridor:"Ouch-Ouch"
Summary:
And chapter 9, Kean is mainly talking about the elements of the periodic table that are poisonous to living organisms. For instance, he tells us about cadmium, bismuth, thallium, polonium, and lead. He first starts off by describing the negative effects that cadmium had in Japan. During the Russo-Japanese War and World War I, miners worked to purify the zinc needed; thus, removing the cadmium. The cadmium was then thrown into streams. Because of this, the Japanese rice became poisoned by the cadmium. Rice was a main food source for the Japanese and so it caused many health problems, especially to woman. Once cadmium enters your system, it doesn't leave. They began calling this sickness the itai-itai disease, which would cause people's bones to weaken and their kidneys to feel as well. In fact, he mentions a situation where a doctor broke a girl’s wrist while only taking her pulse.
Furthermore, Kean then continues by explaining that thallium and bismuth. He tells us about how they planned to use the element thallium on Fidel Castro. By poisoning Fidel Castro with that thallium, his hair would fall off and he would look weakly; this would in a way affect Fidel Castro because he would be looked as weak in front of his comrades. However, this plan was never set in action. The author then switches his focus onto the element bismuth. He explains how bismuth is a metal that burns with the blue flame and that also discharges yellow fumes. Bismuth isn't really as harmful to living organisms as is other elements. In fact, Pepto- Bismol, medicine used today, contains bismuth; bismuth was first used as a solution towards the effects that cadmium-tainted lemonade caused people. He then tells us some interesting stories of how people tried to use these elements to poison others.

Reflection:
Chapter 9 was beyond interesting because it had laid out some facts that I didn't really know about. For example, I have no idea that cadmium was used to coat batteries and computers in order to prevent them from corroding. However, some of the stories he told were very sad to hear about. Stories like what had happened to Japanese people with cadmium very tragic. The other story he told about Graham Young was very intriguing since I couldn't believe that he experimented the thallium, deadliest element on the periodic table, by putting it into his family’s tea. I also couldn't believe that bismuth is used in the medicine Pepto-Bismol today.

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