Word: potassium
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Heinrich Himmler, who in life looked like a cross between a wasp and a pig, looked different in death. His death mask (see cut), taken near Lüneburg, Germany, after his suicide (by swallowing potassium cyanide), might have been mistaken for that of a daft and drunken Silenus...
...short cut he could think of. First step was pouring a solution of uranium salt and other chemicals into a battery of wooden washtubs on the roof. There the photochemical action of the ultraviolet rays in sunlight (on cloudy days, sun lamps) converted the transparent liquid into green, powdery potassium uranium fluoride. The second step: melting this secondary uranium salt in graphite cups for electrolytic separation of the pure metal. The electrodes were raised and lowered by automobile jacks. The final step was simple melting and casting...
...under his arms, in his ears, his hair. Finally the doctor decided to look into Himmler's mouth. The prisoner quickly ground his jaws, and fell to the floor. He had concealed a second poison vial in his mouth, and had broken it with his teeth. The potassium cyanide worked quickly:* in 15 minutes he was dead...
...must: 1) act as if he hated to be ill, 2) stick to one set of symptoms, 3) "Don't tell the doctor too much!" Recipes for twelve diseases follow. Samples: ¶ "Artificial skin inflammation, . . . Take three times daily . . . one teaspoonful of a 10% solution of iodine potassium in a glass of water . . . until a scarlet-like affection of the skin results. . . . Iodine potassium is a completely harmless medicine...
These were staples of prewar Mediterranean imports. Red squill, a plant that resembles the onion, is dried and processed into rat poison. Argols, scales that form on the lining of old wine vats, are a crude form of potassium bitartrate. Bergamot oils are used in perfumes and soaps...