I need a fast-acting (close to instant) ingested poison available in Europe or Australia in the mid-1880's. Failing that I have to have a protracted dinner scene or invent some rare thing from the Outback.

Aaaactually I have no clue...

1. Curare- a preparation made from the toxic skin of the Poison Dart Frogs by natives of America. It's preparation was observed by Sir Walter Raleigh and several others around 1807 and earlier. The problem is, it doesn't work ingested, though it takes only a small amount. I'd say that a small amount applied to a small barb/hook hidden in food would work adequately to inject the poison. Physical effects would be immediate, but actual death wouldn't take place for about 9 minutes. (death by asphixiation)

2. Tobacco (nicotine) Tabacco leaves can be soaked in the sun for several days, then the concoction is allowed to evaporate, leaving a thick black tar. The tar tastes VERY strong, but it only takes a small amount, preferably in coffee (to cover up the taste). The victim would become very hot, very stimulated, pass out very quickly, and die (most likely of heart failure) in as little as 1 minute. I say that its a little slower than curare because a person with a strong constitution might actually take 10 or 15 minutes to be "legally dead". A frail old woman or child would take only moments.

Curare- The victim would die of asphixiation, completely conscious until the end, with there heart continuing to beat for a short time after they were dead.

Damn, blanked out again (it's way too late at night sorry) Socrates?

It's one of 'em Greek dudes y'all

I don't know too much about this, but maybe:

hemlock
belladonna/deadly nightshade
oleander

Not sure about preparation or timing, and suspect that you have already checked but thought I'd throw them in. I'm sure what you decide to use can be intensified (extra-strength) through preparation to make it fast-acting.

Not sure if they did champagne and kir in those days, but that might be a way to disguise a poison - a berry-based poison.

Found this:

http://www.ngia.com.au/np/pdf/2001No14.pdf

when I searched on "poison ingest victorian" just for fun. Oh yeah, what about arsenic? Any way to make a small dose fatal, other than just turning you pale?

Sounds like you'll enjoy writing this!

Lee

Atropine
Found in the belladonna plant. Very poisonous, though not as much so as aconite. Can be absorbed through the skin as well as ingested. Symptoms: Dry mouth and tongue. Difficultly swallowing. Flushed skin leading to rash on upper body. Headache leading to giddiness, hallucination, delirium. Breathing and pulse fast. Dilation of pupils is most distinctive feature - eyes look almost black. Later, signs of paralysis, then coma and death.

Cocaine
Not often used in murder. An overdose overstimulates the eart fatally.

Colchicine
Pale yellow crystals from meadow saffron. Kills in small doses. Fatal within 7 to 36 hours. Death is by paralysis of repiratory system.

Coniine
Oily liquid from hemlock. Not painful to die from it, but progressively paralyses the body until in the end heart or lungs fail. No post-mortem signs except of asphyxia.

Gelsemium
Seldom used. Symptoms are muscular weakness with slow pulse, dilated pupils. Death from respiratory failure.

Nicotine
Liquid at room temperature (the only alkaloid, along with coniine, which has this property). Yellowish oil, discolouring to dark brown in light. Poisoning usually done with insecticide, as this is where nicotine is used (only a tiny amount in cigarettes) Absorbed in skin or drunk.
Symptoms: Burning sensation in mouth. Vomiting and diarrhoea. Mental confusion and dizziness. Convulsions then death vy paralysis of respiratory system. Death is within minutes - only cyanide is quicker.

Opium and Morphine
Raw opium very seldom used as a poison as acts slowly and has a strong smell. Morphine is a white crystalline substance extracted from opium. Used as analgesic, but overdose can be fatal. Fatal dose varies but usually about 5 grams. Symptoms start within minutes. Drowsiness. Nausea. Face swollen and coloured. Patient feels cold. Cyanosis (greyness of extremities) Eyes dilate to pinpoints that don't react to light and dark (this is the most distinctive symptom). Breathing slow and noisy. Pulse slow and weak. Death is by respiratory failure.

Physostigmine
Used by some tribes as an "ordeal" poison. Causes excitement and hallucination. Overdose causes vomiting. Severe overdose interferes with heart and causes death.

Scopolamine (Hyposcine)
Naturally occurring in several plants including belladonna and henbane. Can be administered internally as well as externally. Tiny amounts can be used to treat anxiety or motion sickness. Larger doses break down ability to make reasoned judgements, so has been used as a "Truth Drug" Even larger doses cause hallucinations and floating sensation. Death is when the heart is affected.

Strychnine
Derived from a berry. Colourless solution with a very bitter taste, noticeable even in very weak solutions. Very powerful. 100 milligrams is always fatal, though much smaller doses have killed within 20 minutes.
Symptoms: Symptoms come on within 2 or 3 hours - sometimes much faster - but them proceed rapidly. Restlessless. Feeling of suffocation. Face muscles contract and victim looks as if they're grinning. This is followed by very violent and distorting contractions, followed by a period of rest, then an attack of even more violent contractions. Patient is conscious but in agony, unable to speak because of lockjaw. Pulse is incredibly high. Death is during a convulsion, from paralysis of respiratory system. Sometimes confused with tetanus or epilepsy (though different from epilepsy as person is conscious throughout.)

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Cantharidin
Spanish fly. When crushed and rubbed on skin, causes blisters. Taken orally, a small dose results in kidney damage. Larger doses inflame mouth, throat and stomach. Vomit and urine contain blood. Headache, delirium, convulsions, leading to death.

Thanks for the link punahougirl, good stuff there. Angel Flower is particuarly appealing because of the irony of the name.

Arsenic is what's in the story right now, but it wasn't fast-acting enough for the scene I had in mind. The symptoms of Strychnine are tempting because I like the idea of them grinning at the head table, dying in front of everyone. If I can figure out a way to mask the bitter taste...

I don't know if this would help, but from what I understand about it, champagne would be suitable as a trigger: nitrobenzene is a poison that used to be found in shoe polish the fumes of which could enter the skin and cause death, especially if the victim had alcohol in his/her system.

There's a story about a young man going to someone to buy a love potion that would make the young lady fall passionately and desperately in love with him. The vender kept asking him if he would also be interested in an indetectable poison, but the young man insisted he was just interested in making this girl absolutely obsessed with him and him alone.

So the vender sold him the love potion, all the while describing the virtues of his indetectable poison, even though the young man was not at all interested. When the young man left the shop, the vender told him, "See you later."

There was an expedition (to find the North Pole, if I remember correctly) in which every man died because they were stranded, had used up their supplies, and tried to survive on the polar bear(s) they killed.

No antivenin back in the 1880's. Lethal.

The males are the ones that do most of the biting and are more toxic than the females.

http://arachnophiliac.co.uk/burrow/tenmostvenomous.htm

Here's a site for you to check as well.

-Bryan-

Here's a quote from one website (http://www.destroy-all-monsters.com/fugu.shtml):

quote:

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During the Meiji period, fugu was prohibited in many areas of Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate completely banned blowfish consumption, but by the mid-1800's it had returned as the government's power over the people waned.

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http://www.spaink.net/suicide/suicide_poison_natural.html

>>I need a fast-acting (close to instant) ingested poison available in Europe or Australia in the mid-1880's. Failing that I have to have a protracted dinner scene or invent some rare thing from the Outback.<<

So does Desenex, but most people just don't believe in it... they keep putting it on their feet!!

Want to know?

quote:

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Isn't Potassium fatal in large amounts?

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Everything's fatal in large amounts. But I can't find an LD50 for potassium listed in any of my usual sources, so I don't know exactly how much you'd need to take before it was poisonous. I'd expect that more than about 10 grams at a time would be risky.

Potassium chloride (KCl) is a metal halide
which is used in medicine, scientific applications, food processing and in judicial execution through lethal injection

It occurs naturally as the mineral
sylvite and in combination with sodium chloride as sylvinite.

Orally it is toxic, but the LD50 is around 2500 mg/kg. Intravenously this is reduced to just over 100 mg/kg but of more concern are its severe effects on cardiac muscles; high doses can cause cardiac arrest and rapid death.

[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited July 21, 2004).]

Cyanide isn't tasteless or odorless (though a significant fraction of the population can't smell the gas), but it is a pretty darn good poison.

There is a poisonous Australian frog, commonly called the Southern Corroboree Frog (its scientific designation is Pseudophryne corroboree), that manufactures its own alkaloid toxin by eating specific insects and secretes said substance from glands in the skin. This particular class of alkaloid has been labeled ‘pseudophrynamine’ after the frog’s genus. The pseudophrynamines were recently found to be efficient blockers of nicotinic receptors (biological components involved in neurological function). This and similar toxins are some of the most powerful cardiotoxins known to man. The venom is neurotoxic as well as myotoxic, and is curare-like in effect, causing irreversible blockage of neuromuscular signal transmission.

Alkaloids, complex organic compounds of nitrogen, have many forms, including strychnine, morphine, quinine, cocaine, and nicotine. Apparently, many alkaloids also come from plants.

This excerpt from the Australian Department of the Environment and Heritage details the frog’s habitat (which might come in handy if you need to write a scene where the toxin is ‘harvested’):

quote:

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The nationally endangered Southern Corroboree Frog has an extremely limited distribution, restricted to sub-alpine areas in the Australian Capital Territory and Kosciuszko National Park in the south of New South Wales. The species is only found at high altitudes within an area of about 400 square kilometres. The Southern Corroboree Frog uses two distinct types of habitat during its lifecycle: pools, wet tussock grass and wet heath for breeding; and forest, sub-alpine woodland and tall heath next to the breeding areas during other times of the year.

Females only breed once a year, and the tadpoles are slow growing, spending over six months in shallow pools. Its restricted habitat and specialised breeding pattern makes this species extremely vulnerable to disturbance.

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Bear in mind that this is current habitat information. I’m not sure how much (if any) change has occurred since the late 19th century. I would hazard a guess that this particular type of frog was far more plentiful in the 1880s...before modern pollution and encroachment of habitat (as well as other currently unknown causes) pointed this species toward the trail of critical endangerment, where it finds itself today.

Another viable (and more clinically specific) alternative to using frog venom would be this:

quote:

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From http://www.famie.com/australia/mostunusual_mostdangerous.htm (a site which describes some of Australia’s most dangerous animals)

The Blue-Ringed Octopus is another one of the smaller, but more deadly marine animals that inhabit the coastal waters around Australia. The blue-ringed octopus is normally light in color, with dark brown bands over its eight arms and body, with blue circles superimposed on these dark brown bands. When the octopus is disturbed or taken out of the water, the colors darken and the rings turn a brilliant electric-blue color, and it is this color change that gives the animal its name. The blue-ringed octopus secretes a very deadly poison, either by biting with its parrot-like beak, or by squirting the poison into the water surrounding it.

The direct bite from the blue-ringed octopus is usually painless, but the deadly effects of the poison will be noticed immediately. The poison apparently interferes with the body's nervous system. The victim will immediately experience numbness of the mouth and tongue, blurring of vision, loss of touch, difficulty with speech and swallowing, and paralysis of the legs and nausea. If the victim does not receive medical treatment immediately, full paralysis may occur within minutes, followed by unconsciousness and death due to heart failure and lack of oxygen. There is no antivenom for the poison from a blue-ringed octopus. It is usually necessary to perform continuous CPR on a victim until the effects of the venom have subsided. This may take several hours, but it may mean the difference between life or death for the victim.

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Hope some of this helps (if you don’t go cross-eyed reading it all!)

Also, check this out:

quote:

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Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon

15:56 26 November 04

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths caused by plant-derived poisons.

Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say. But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to detect how often it is used to murder people.

A team led by Yvan Gaillard of the Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology in La Voulte-sur-Rhône, France, documented more than 500 cases of fatal Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the south-west Indian state of Kerala alone. Half of Kerala’s plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera.

But the true number of deaths due to Cerbera poisoning in Kerala could be twice that, the team estimates, as poisonings are difficult to identify by conventional means.

Unnoticed homicides

Using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to examine autopsy tissues for traces of the plant, the team uncovered a number of homicides that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This also suggests that some cases put down to suicide may actually have been murders, they say.

Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove.

Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to western toxicologists, Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten the plant. “It is the perfect murder,” he says.

Three-quarters of Cerbera victims are women. The team says that this may mean the plant is being used to kill young wives who do not meet the exacting standards of some Indian families. It is also likely that many cases of homicide using the plant go unnoticed in countries where it does not grow naturally.

Journal reference: Journal of Ethnopharmacology (vol 95, p 123)

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