Poison is definitely among fiction’s greatest weapons.
Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes seem to have developed the audience’s taste
for untraceable, fast-acting poisons. However, murder mystery is one thing, but
when the story becomes reality, you have got yourself a real killer! Here is a
list of the most famous poisons used to kill people throughout history.
Hemlock or Conium is a highly toxic flowering plant
indigenous to Europe and South
Africa. It was a popular one with the
ancient Greeks, who used it to kill off their prisoners. For an adult, the
ingestion of 100mg of conium or about 8 leaves of the plant is fatal – death
comes in the form of paralysis, your mind is wide awake, but your body doesn’t
respond and eventually the respiratory system shuts down. Probably the most
famous hemlock poisoning is that of Greek philosopher, Socrates. Condemned to
death for impiety in 399 BC, he was given a very concentrated infusion of
hemlock.
9 Aconite
Aconite comes from the plant monkshood. Also known as
wolfsbane, aconite leaves only one post-mortem sign, that of asphyxia, as it
causes arrhythmic heart function which leads to suffocation. Poisoning can
occur even after touching the leaves of the plant without wearing gloves as it
is very rapidly and easily absorbed. Because of its untraceable nature it has
been a popular one with the “get away with murder” crowd. Reportedly, it has a
particularly famous casualty. The emperor Claudius is said to have been
poisoned by his wife, Agrippina, using aconite in a plate of mushrooms.
8 Belladonna
This was a favorite of the ladies! The name of this plant is
derived from Italian and means beautiful woman. That’s because it was used in the
middle-ages for cosmetic purposes – diluted eye-drops dilated the pupils,
making the women more seductive (or so they thought). Also, if gently rubbed on
their checks, it would create a reddish color, what today would be known as
blush! This plant seems innocent enough, right? Well, actually, if ingested, a
single leaf is lethal and that’s why it was used to make poison-tipped arrows.
The berries of this plant are the most dangerous – consumption of ten of the
attractive-looking berries is fatal.
7 Dimethylmercury
This one is a slow killer – a man-made slow killer! But this
is exactly what makes it all the more dangerous. Absorption of doses as low as
0.1ml have proven fatal; however, symptoms of poisoning start showing after
months of initial exposure, which is definitely too late for any kind of
treatment. In 1996, a chemistry professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire,
spilled a drop or two of the poison on her gloved hand – dimethylmercury went
through the latex glove, symptoms appeared four months later and ten months
later, she died.
6 Tetrodotoxin
This substance is found in two marine creatures – the
blue-ringed octopus and the puffer fish. However, the octopus is the most
dangerous, because it purposely injects its venom, killing it in minutes. It
carries enough venom to kill 26 human adults within minutes and the bites are
often painless, so many victims realize they have been bitten only when
paralysis sets in. On the other hand, the puffer fish is only lethal if you
want to eat it, but if it is well prepared, meaning the venom is taken out, the
only thing that’s left is the adrenaline of eating something which could kill
you.
5 Polonium
Polonium is a radioactive poison, a slow killer with no
cure. One gram of vaporised polonium can kill about 1.5 million people in just
a couple of months. The most famous case of polonium poisoning is that of
ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Polonium was found in his tea cup – a dose
200 times higher than the median lethal dose in case of ingestion. He died in
three weeks.
4 Mercury
There are three forms of mercury which are extremely
dangerous. Elemental mercury is the one you can find in glass thermometers,
it’s not harmful if touched, but lethal if inhaled. Inorganic mercury is used
to make batteries, and is deadly only when ingested. And finally, organic
mercury is found in fish, such as tuna and swordfish (consumption should be
limited to 170g per week), but can be potentially deadly over long periods of
time. A famous death caused by mercury is that of Amadeus Mozart, who was given
mercury pills to treat his syphilis.
3 Cyanide
Now here’s one right out of an Agatha Christie novel.
Cyanide seems to be extremely popular (spies use cyanide pills to kill
themselves when caught) and there are plenty of reasons for this. Firstly, it
is found in a great variety of substances like almonds, apple seeds, apricot
kernel, tobacco smoke, insecticides, pesticides and the list goes on. Murder in
this case can be blamed on a household accident, such as ingestion of pesticide
– a fatal dose of cyanide for humans is 1.5 mg per kilogram of body weight.
Secondly, it’s a rapid killer: depending on the dose, death occurs within 1 to
15 minutes. Also, in its gaseous form – hydrogen cyanide – it was the agent
used by Nazi Germany for mass murders in gas chambers during the Holocaust.
2 Botulinum Toxin
If you’re watching Sherlock Holmes, then you’ll know about
this one. The Botulinum toxin causes Botulism, a fatal condition if not treated
immediately. It involves muscle paralysis, eventually leading to the paralysis
of the respiratory system and, consequently, death. The bacteria enter the body
through open wounds or by ingesting contaminated food. By the way, botulinum
toxin is the same stuff used for Botox injections!
1 Arsenic
Arsenic has been called “The King of Poisons”, for its
discreetness and potency – it was virtually undetectable, so it was very often
used either as a murder weapon or as a mystery story element. But that’s until
the Marsh test came and signalled the presence of this poison in water, food
and the like. However, this king of poisons has taken many famous lives:
Napoleon Bonaparte, George the 3rd of England and Simon Bolivar to name a
few. On another note, arsenic, like belladonna, was used by the Victorians for
cosmetic reasons. A couple of drops of the stuff made a woman’s complexion
white and pale. Just perfect!
Source : http://listverse.com
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