Another one was a seed, and I will have to go home and find the reference, but it was swallowed whole to induce an abortion. However, if you picked the wrong one or the outer covering of the seed was damaged and dissolved too quickly in your stomach you were a goner. They say between 30 - 50 percent of those who took the seed died as a result. It was quick, but I will find you the reference. They also used it as a decoration for ceremonial clubs and spears etc. It is red and black and shiny and very pretty, We used to have it growing at my school.

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We used to have it growing at my school.

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http://members.tripod.com/~Prof_Anil_Aggrawal/poiso026.html

One common form of poisoning then was not really poisoning but feeding contaminated foods such as eggs left in the sun, blood smeared on utensils and dishes, diseased animal parts mixed in with food and most vile mixing in sewage, wound drainage, or corpse meat. The practice of harvesting corpses for nefarious purposes was a problem worldwide and still is in some countries. In the USA Mississippi and Lousianna still have many cases of grave tampering. Death by what would be intentional food posioning would be very hard to prove and may take some time to achieve death. Although botulism was much more deadly in those days before we had readily designed medical treatments which are for the most part successful. Then one had to obtain a doctor to come by the house. if your poisoner was the same person who would get the doctor- oh well the victim was most likely doomed.

Another very common practice was placing glass, fibres, pieces of metal etc. There is a method today that is very quick. For example something that seems so harmless: Dietary fibre supplement powders mixed incorrectly (too little water) can choke one to death rather quickly. The mix when not accompanied by sufficent fluids swells rapidly filling the throat and part of sinuses blocking the airway- thus suffocating the victim. Which is why you never leave that stuff anywhere near children!

just some thoughts.

JB Skaggs

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Dietary fibre supplement powders mixed incorrectly (too little water) can choke one to death rather quickly. The mix when not accompanied by sufficent fluids swells rapidly filling the throat and part of sinuses blocking the airway- thus suffocating the victim. Which is why you never leave that stuff anywhere near children!

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I also want to kill a character and I'm wondering if anyone knows how much tobacco is fatal(both by smoke inhalation and skin or mucous membrane absorption)in less than fifteen minutes.

Good luck, y'all with your writing!

Salt is a hard to trace poison too.

I just tried that in Google and found what looks like a nice list of sites including ones like this:

Just a (scary) thought.

I ran across this link not too long ago. Not entirely about poisons, but a lot of really obscure and useful native and aboriginal herbal treatments.

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The book, "Striking Back," ... author Aaron Klein describes how Israel tracked down Wadia Haddad, an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in Baghdad. ...In Baghdad of 1977, luxuries like fine chocolates were rare. Through a Palestinian working with the Mossad who had gotten close to Haddad, the agency was able to feed Haddad chocolate brought from Belgium and spread with poison over six months, Klein said.

Haddad died in March 1978, showing only symptoms of leukemia but no signs of poisoning...

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However, you might wish to investigate the ever popular method of offing someone with poisonous mushrooms. One in particular, is a member of the Amanita group and named, appropriately, "Destroying Angel." I once read that one of these mushrooms is so quick that by the time they have figured out what you ate that is making you sick, it is already too late. Eating one of these little beauties is tantamount to suicide.

- Takes only a few hundred micrograms to kill you
- Can be administered just about any way (in food, by injection, by just spraying someone with it or releasing it into the air)
- No widely-available, reliable test exists to detect it
- Always fatal with sufficient dosage
- No antidote: best known treatment is to treat symptoms and hope the patient doesn't die before ricin is flushed (3-5 days)

Uranium, on the other hand, is proven to be extremely deadly, particularly when oxidized. Plutonium, though chemically very different, does form aqueously soluable oxides as well.

The trick of poisoning someone undetectably is to make it look like the person wasn't being poisoned. Thus, short of not killing the victim or even causing any symptoms not easily put down to mild illness, you must disguise the underlying cause of whatever debilitating effects you wish to cause. Any method of poisoning becomes detectable once you suspect poison enough to check for everything.

Really.

I'm being serious!

Stop laughing!

However, this bacterium is anaerobic (ergo, it 'grows' poorly in an oxygen atmosphere), and is difficult to produce in large quantities without specialized facilities. This also makes it extremely hard to use in an aerosol-weapon capacity, although lacing a substance (i.e., a cigarette, cigar, lollypop, inhaler, etc.) in which the bacteria could survive would solve the problem.

Another really scary thing about it is that "common nerve agent treatments (namely the injection of atropine and 2-pam-chloride) will increase mortality by enhancing botulin toxin's mechanism of toxicity."

The stuff's also been around (as a known substance) since the middle of the 19th-century, though it was not likely a 'workable' tool of assassination or weapon until the early 20th-century.

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

For poisions great and small you might want to look at "Horse Owner's Field Guide to Toxic Plants" by Sandra Burgur and Anthony P. Knight, BVCS, MS, MRCVS. It lists all known toxic plants in the United States, including symptoms of poisioning and known cures.

On Foxglove:
"Its toxic principles are saponins, alkaloids, and the cardiac glycosides ditoxin, digitalin and digoxin. When consumed it takes only a few hundredths of a percents of an animal's weight to be fatal. Toxicity is not affected by drying or aging. Signs of poisioning: Colic, bloody feces, poor appetite, pain, frequent urination. irregular heartbeat and pulse, and convulsions are possible symptoms in the horse before death."

My current favorite is:

Oleander: A woody evergreen bush, native to Asia but cultivated in the southern regions of the west coast and the Southern United States. "Cardiac glycosines, the the toxic principle, are found throughout the plant. It takes only 1 ounce of leaves to kill a large horse (1700-1800 lbs). of .0005 percent of its body weight. Do not burn this plant, as the smoke is also toxic." Signs of poisioning "diarreha, trembling, and cold extremities. Paralysis, cardiac arrest, and coma followed by death will occur if a fatal amount is ingested."

On a more general note, the higher voltage of stun guns usually causes the current to travel mostly along the skin, which is one reason they're called "stun" guns rather than "lethal heart attack" guns. However, if you stuck the probes directly into the injection site, you might overcome this to a degree.

One thing you won't overcome, stun guns are designed to deliver maximum debilitating pain for minimum tissue damage. The spark from an outboard motor ignition circuit is designed to...well, burn things rather than cause pain. It's also high voltage (and relatively low amperage), but it's...different. Unpleasant, but bearable.

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If you don't want to purchase a taser, then tape an egg to the center of your chest and aggravate a local police officer. Be sure to request the egg when they're checking out of the overnight lockup so that you can check on your results.

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J - that was way too funny.

It would also give you something to eat while you waited for them to drag the magistrate out of bed for your bond hearing.

I don't know about venom but for Oleander there is no specific treatment although the book recommends activated charcoal via stomach tube (eeeew!), IV fluids and some cardiac medications and EKG monitoring until the symptoms pass or the victim succumbs. I mean after that point it truely would be beating a dead horse. CPR on a horse is just no fun.