“Arsenic’s Toxic Legacy: People, Places, Pests and Peppermints” is a look at how, during the 19th and 20th centuries, arsenic and its compounds appeared to offer marvellous solutions particularly in the spheres of medicine, fashion, design and pest control so long as an increasingly blind-eye was turned to the problem of its dreadful toxicity. The talk considers a few deliberate and accidental poisonings as well as linking the once major uses of arsenic with its supply in vast quantities across the world from the former tin and copper mines of Devon and Cornwall. Providing technical information, surprise, history, horror and humour in balanced measure, after hearing this talk, the thought of a mouth-cooling peppermint lozenge might induce a more spine-chilling feeling! Length of talk 50 to 60 minutes. Can be adapted by arrangement.