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The Loaf That Poisoned Hong Kong: Arsenic, Trial, and Silence
The Loaf That Poisoned Hong Kong: Arsenic, Trial, and Silence
Fear of contamination and imperial scandal - nearly 300 to 500 European residents were violently poisoned after eating a single bakery's morning loaf, and the same slice sat sealed in the Chief Justice's office for almost eighty years, preserved by the arsenic it contained. Who put nearly one drachm of arsenic trioxide per pound into the dough, and why did so many survive?
In this episode, we recount the January 15, 1857 poisoning in colonial Hong Kong, the medical response, the forensic findings tying the toxin to a specific…
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