The Anatomy of Deception (43 page)

The notes from Wright’s experiment and the animal tests afterward are taken from the journals, and all the details of the development of heroin are accurate. While there is no specific evidence of experiments at Bayer to acetylize morphine as early as 1889, the competition between the German chemical companies to develop drugs from industrial products was as described.

I
HAD A GREAT DEAL
of help in completing this book, both in the research and the writing. For the former, I wish to thank Dr. H. Wayne Carver, III, chief medical examiner for the State of Connecticut, who took great pains to educate me on the intricacies of autopsy and the history of opiates and cocaine. Carol Fletterick, also of the medical examiner’s office, was consistently helpful and gracious in answering what must have been some pretty dumb questions.

Drs. Dennis Wasson and Greg Soloway both read the manuscript to ensure that I didn’t make any egregious errors in the medical sections, and Dennis imparted some wonderful anecdotes about nineteenth-century surgery. Any errors that remain are certainly mine and not theirs.

I queried any number of others. Christine Crawford-Oppenheimer at the Culinary Institute of America provided some terrific old menus and background on social mores of the period. Robert Eskind at the Philadelphia Bureau of Prisons filled me in on police procedures for the newly arrested. Beth Bensman at the Presbyterian Historical Society was an excellent resource on Philadelphia history, as was her husband, Martin Levitt, librarian at the American Philosophical Society. Toby Appel, head librarian at the Harvey Cushing/ John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale, unearthed some wonderful material, particularly Dr. Osler’s autopsy notes. John Rees, curator of archives and modern manuscripts at
the National Library of Medicine directed me to some fascinating sources, including the Tiemann & Co.’s 1880s catalog.

On the editorial side, this book could not have been written without the indefatigable and insightful attention of my agent, Jennifer Joel. I simply have never experienced or heard of an agent who took more care with a manuscript. I am also indebted to Jenn for directing my manuscript to my editor, Kate Miciak. Kate’s vision for the book matched my own and she was patient, tireless, and thoroughly professional in nudging a sometimes reluctant author to continue to make the book better.

Finally, I want to thank my wife, Nancy, and my daughter, Emily. Each read the manuscript (in Nancy’s case, more than once) and was helpful and wise in her suggestions. But mostly I want to thank them for their tolerance, understanding, forbearance … and endurance. Living with me requires each of those traits and in some magnitude, and I am lucky to have them both.