The Poisoner

Published: Jan. 19, 2022, 9:16 p.m.

The ancient and oft quoted Hippocratic oath exhorts all doctors \u201cto do no harm.\u201d Technically the exact words are: \u201cI will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm.\u201d It also states that \u201cNeither will I administer poison to anybody.\u201d One Victorian gentleman in England, who did not get the memo, was Dr. William Palmer, who, in the mid-19th century, although tried for only one murder, is purported to have poisoned several individuals. Among his alleged victims: his wife, his mother-in-law, his brother, and four of his own children and anyone he managed to take out a life insurance policy on with himself as the beneficiary.

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Journalist and author Stephen Bates wrote a book on the man Queen Victoria called \u201ca black leg\u201d in her diary, entitled THE POISONER and he joins us on Murder Most Foul.