The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Tammany Hall was a nickname used to refer to New York City’s Democratic Party, due to its headquarters at a building named Tammany Hall located by New York’s Union Square. Tammany Hall was one of New York’s “political machines”—political parties that had been taken control of by a few powerful individuals (“party bosses”) who used their influence to sway New York political decisions in their favor. In The Poisoner’s Handbook, Tammany Hall primarily appears due to its relation to New York’s coroner system. Tammany Hall’s party leaders would place unqualified allies into the position of coroner, and their lack of medical expertise would lead to significant mistakes. 

Prohibition refers to the 18th Amendment to the US constitution, which prohibited the sale of any alcoholic beverage throughout the United States. The charge for the bill was led by temperance advocates, who believed that liquor and public drunkenness were becoming a national crisis and that liquor needed to be completely banned. As Blum charts throughout The Poisoner’s Handbook, Prohibition had the opposite of its intended effect, driving individuals to consume hard liquor that was often derived from poisonous industrial alcohol. By the 1930s, American attitudes on Prohibition had changed, and they saw the act as having “contributed to the economy’s collapse…[and] increasing drunkenness” (222).