Ricin immunogenic in mice, rabbits, and humans. It has completed two successful clinical trials. Ricin has been involved in a number of incidents. In 1978, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by Bulgarian secret police who surreptitiously shot him on a London street with a modified umbrella using compressed gas to fire a tiny pellet contaminated with ricin into his leg. He died in a hospital a few days later and his body was passed to a special poison branch of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) that discovered the pellet during an autopsy. The prime suspects were the Bulgarian
Mercer Street, London Mercer Street, London Mercer Street is a street in the Seven Dials district of Covent Garden, London, England. Mercer Street runs south east to north west from Long Acre to Shaftesbury Avenue, crossing Shelton Street. About two-thirds up, it meets Seven Dials, where it intersects with Monmouth Street, Earlham Street, and Shorts Gardens. The street takes its name from the Mercers' Company, who owned much of the land next to the seven acres of Covent Garden purchased by the Earl of Bedford in 1552. Freed of London manufactured pointe shoes for ballet dancers in Mercer Street from 1947 until 1971,