Chinese Murder Mystery. I'd sent this episode to Scott Moyers, my Random House editor, and he pointed out correctly that it has nothing to do with smell, but I include it here for fun. It was cut from the chapter "Creation."

As he was writing, he got involved via email in a murder mystery in China.

In April, Stewart had received a mass emailing from a young Chinese Ph.D. candidate at UCLA studying telemedicine. The mailing concerned a 21-year-old student in Beijing named Zhu Ling. She had fallen into a coma under enigmatic circumstances-Stewart forwarded the details to Turin-and as the doctors were baffled, the UCLA student had list-mailed an Internet all-points bulletin pleading for help. Turin, fascinated, absorbed the description, then dropped his Vibration paper for a moment to run and check out an idea he had. He came back and quickly replied to the entire Zhu Ling list:

Hello friends

Just got your e-mail via Walter Stewart, and something immediately came to mind. Has anyone checked whether Zhu Ling is not suffering from *thallium poisoning* (or possibly some other heavy metal)???.

(Turin had worked with thallium some years ago and had, as he put it, "for once actually read the safety notice that came with the bottle.")

I just checked with the poison center in London, and they agree. She has all the classic symptoms: rapid hair loss, neurological problems, no other understandable signs. Is she a chemist? Could someone have tried to poison her? If so, the antidote for thallium is prussian blue (ferric hexacyanoferrate (II)). The dosage is 250mg/kg of body weight per day given orally in divided doses dissolved in a mannitol solution.

The poison center reports that people have been saved with prussian blue even after *95 days* on a respirator. If you need any of the reagents, I'd be happy to send them to you by Fedex as fast as possible. Please send a fax number so I could get you a data sheet on thallium poisoning.

He enjoyed the sleuthing.

Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995
To: stewartw@helix.nih.gov
From: l.turin@ucl.ac.uk
Subject: zhu ling

Hi walter! I'm home now, couple of things occurred to me. If Zhu Ling was poisoned at all, she was poisoned twice (read the description again), and for all we know whoever poisoned her is by her bedside as we speak. Also, could you e-mail them to tell them to send a blood sample asap to here, we'll have it analysd by the poison centre at Guys' Hospital. We'll pay for it of course. I finally read their e-mail in detail, and she had an upset stomach in Dec!! another classic sign. God, I'm praying for the poor girl, let's hope she pulls through though in all probability her health will be compromised for ever. I'll check my mail in 3 min or so.

And an hour later:

Reading your e-mail in a hurry, I had missed the fact that Zhu Ling was a *chemistry student*, which increases the probability of (deliberate or accidental) poisoning enormously. If she was poisoned, it maybe that whoever did it gave her two doses, accounting for her getting better and then relapsing again. Make sure it does not happen again. Send me a blood sample by Federal Express for thallium analysis, I'll pay for transport and testing. Do it *FAST*. Remember to give fax and 'phone.

Then silence from China. There was no reply. "Zhu Ling??" queried Stewart.

"Not a peep from anyone," shrugged Turin. "Probably *all* poisoned!"

As he was rewriting the zinc/receptor data, he received from Stewart (23 July 1995, "Subject: Holy living God!!!!!!!!) a forwarded update:

>From: Xin Li <xli@endeavor.radsci.ucla.edu>
>Medical Imaging Division
>UCLA School of Medicine
>
>Dear friends and doctors:
>
>You, or your friends you consulted with, are among the first 81 persons-- 2000 mails from the world, about 18 countries and regions-who made the correct diagnosis for the 21-year-old Chinese girl student in Beijing! She did get thallium-poisoning!
>
>This is Xin LI, a Ph.D. student at UCLA working on teleradiology and telemedicine. As all of you know, I was involved in this case in April. We did not know so many of you also involved in this case until I came back to Beijing and met the Beijing university students who sent the SOS message on
>April 10. No words can express the kindness and
>help from such an international community for a 21-year-old girl in far-away
>China.
>
>It was with the diagnosis from all of you, the patient was finally tested for thallium at an occupational
>diseases center in Beijing on April 28. Without your contribution, this test will not even be tried since
>some occupational disease doctors in Beijing had excluded the possibility of thallium-poisoning
>without even a test.
>
>Her main treatment regimen is Prussian blue together with hemodialysis and KCl. She is still in coma!
>But according to doctors, the poison has almost been excreted and she is now in stage of nervous
>restoration. No other treatment but Prussian Blue is being applied now. Her father told me that she has
>a tiny nervous improvement slowly and gradually.
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>Xin Li

Turin sighed with relief and went back to his paper.....