London, 1861. This is Alice. She’s seventeen years old. And her skin is turning green. Alice makes artificial flowers for wealthy women’s hats and dresses. The most fashionable color is bright green. To achieve that vivid green, they use arsenic: ∙ Scheele’s Green ∙ Paris Green ∙ Beautiful, brilliant, deadly Alice dips white fabric petals into arsenic dye solution. Hundreds of flowers daily. Her hands in the dye for twelve hours. The green stains her fingers permanently. She breathes arsenic dust constantly. It settles on her lunch. She eats it without realizing. The symptoms started within months: ∙ Stomach pains ∙ Then her skin began changing color—a greenish tint ∙ The arsenic is accumulating in her tissues Now: ∙ Her hair is falling out ∙ Her fingernails are crumbling ∙ She’s lost so much weight her coworkers barely recognize her She’s seventeen and dying of arsenic poisoning. The green flowers she made will be worn by wealthy women at parties. Beautiful green flowers. Poi...