![]() ![]() The subsequent publication 2 describing the case includes the following acknowledgement: “We are indebted to the late Agatha Christie for her excellent and perceptive clinical descriptions and to Nurse Maitland for keeping us up to date on the literature. It was recommended in the treatment of thallium intoxication in the 1970s and it is now normally used. A urine sample revealed high levels of thallium and an antidote could be administrated - Prussian blue, which binds to the metal and helps expel it from the body. The use of Prussian blue against thallium poisoning and as a decorporation agent for 134 cesium and 137 cesium has been investigated since the 1960s. One of the nurses, however, was reading The Pale Horse and realised the similarities between the symptoms of her patient and Agatha Christie's fictitious victim. Without a diagnosis, the doctors could not do much. In 1977, a 19-month-old girl from Qatar was admitted to Hammersmith Hospital, London, suffering from a serious, unknown sickness. Agatha Christie made use of thallium in her 1961 novel The Pale Horse - and in doing so actually saved a life. Soon after its discovery, thallium's toxicity became apparent and it found widespread use as rat poison, but has since been deemed unsafe and banned in many countries due to numerous tragic accidents as well as murders. ![]()
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