Poison Eaters

Abstract

Testing the boundaries between food, poison and medicine is a public show made into a continuing drama of risk and survival. This book is the first to explore the tradition of deliberate poison eating, its practitioners, and the substances that might nourish or kill them. Readers interested in the human history of drugs and medicine, in feats of endurance usually survived and in the play of controlling and regulatory authorities that always accompanies drug and poison use will find Poison Eaters especially appealing.

About the Author

Previously an investigator with the Medical Unit of the California State Division of Workers Compensation, Richard Swiderski teaches physical and medical anthropology courses at the community college level.