Murder and Mayhem (23 page)

Are Some Poisons Absorbed Through the Skin?

Q: Is it true that your skin absorbs some poisons? If so, what are some common ones?

A: The skin is our largest organ. More than simply a "jacket to keep everything inside," it is a living entity that is affected by many things, both internal and external. Many internal diseases manifest changes in the skin, as do things that contact it from the outside. Sunburn, bumps, bruises, scrapes, and irritative chemicals are some common ones.

Yes, chemical substances, including some medicines and poisons, are absorbed through the skin. Many medicines are now available in transdermal delivery systems. Adhesive patches can deliver nicotine for smoking cessation, nitroglycerin for angina, clonidine for hypertension, and scopolamine for motion sickness, just to name a few.

Heavy metals such as antimony, mercury, and lead pass through the skin and can result in chronic poisoning. DDT, chlordane, paraquat, malathion, and other pesticides cross the skin barrier and

can cause acute and chronic problems. Cyanide readily slips through and can be very deadly.

An interesting historical note is that Ludwig van Beethoven may have died from plumbism (lead poisoning). Recently evaluated samples of his hair contained one hundred times the normal level of lead. His exposure could have come from pewter dishes and drinking vessels, leaded paint, or perhaps from water pipes, which contained lead in his day. However, another source could have been a glass harmonica. This instrument, which produced a hypnotic wet crystal sound, was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761. He demonstrated the instrument to Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on his visit to France during the American Revolutionary War. Both composers later wrote music for the instrument.

The glass harmonica consisted of various-sized blown glass bowls arrayed along a spindle that rotated while the player placed moistened fingers on the bowls. Leaded paint was applied to the bowls to differentiate the various notes each would produce. Perhaps the lead that invaded Beethoven's body entered through his fingers or from licking them to keep them moist, which was necessary to produce the sounds.

The symptoms of chronic plumbism include psychiatric and neurologic problems, deafness, and eventually death. It sounds a lot like Ludwig. Wolfgang, too, for that matter.

Does Jimsonweed Make an Effective Poison?

Q: Can an adult die from drinking a strong tea made with jimsonweed?

fight Bacon's Rebellion in 1666 in Jamestown, Virginia, ran out of food and ate the berries of this plant, resulting in a mass poisoning.

The plant has white or purple funnel-shaped flowers and possesses an unpleasant odor. It also has a very unpleasant taste, so tea may not work. Perhaps you might consider a more aromatic drink such as mulled cider or a Manhattan (it contains vermouth and bitters, which might mask the taste, particularly if it was the victim's third or fourth drink).

The entire plant is poisonous, and when burned, the fumes are toxic. A tea made from the leaves and/or seeds is particularly toxic. In your scenario you could boil several of the plants in a pot of water until a strong liquor remained. Add this to any drink, and it would be very toxic.

The poisonous ingredients are hyoscyamine (mostly), hyoscine, and atropine. They are in the belladonna alkaloid family, with the prototype being the belladonna plant, or deadly nightshade, as it is also called.

Death may take several hours, depending on the strength of the tea and the amount ingested. Symptoms are those of atropine poisoning: vertigo, blurred vision, dilated pupils, headache, rapid and weak pulse, drowsiness, mania, delirium, confusion, disorientation, dry mouth and eyes, extreme thirst, flushing and a burning sensation of the skin, seizures, and finally coma and death.

In medical school we learned the signs and symptoms of atropine poisoning as follows:

Blind as a bat (dilated pupils and blurred vision) Red as a beet (the skin may become red and burn) Dry as a bone (the dry eyes and mouth) Mad as a hatter (the mania and delirium)

As you see, you have numerous symptoms and signs to work with. These can occur in almost any combination, since people react differently to the toxins.

How Does the "Posture" of Strychnine Poisoning Work?

Q: I am writing a mystery where the murdered character has been given a lethal dose of strychnine via eyedrops and dumped in a field where he dies. He is then buried by the killer. The body is found approximately three weeks later. I have read that strychnine poisoning causes a classic death grin on the face of a victim, blue coloring of the skin, and bowing of the back muscles, which is evident on a corpse after death. Am I correct about this? I want my victim to reflect the obvious postmortem symptoms of strychnine poisoning so that when the body is discovered, the M.E. recognizes these conditions and suspects strychnine as the cause of death. Is waiting three weeks for discovery of the body too long for this to be feasible? How about the use of eyedrops to administer strychnine? What's the average time and dosage for it to take effect and start seizures?

A: First, let's look at strychnine. It comes from several types of plants and their seeds. One source is the dog button
(Strychnos nux-vomica),
which grows in tropical areas, such as India and Hawaii. It is a colorless, odorless crystalline powder with a bitter taste. It can absorb through the stomach, the lungs, the skin, and the conjunctivae (the pink part) of the eyes.

The problem with your chosen method of delivery of this poison is one of dosing. The lethal amount of strychnine is between 100 and 120 milligrams (mg), and it would be difficult to concentrate the powder sufficiently so that a couple of drops in the eye would be lethal. Perhaps you could put it in the saline solution the victim uses to wash his eyes if he is a contact lens wearer. This would be more plausible since irrigating his eyes with the tainted

solution after removing his contacts might supply enough of the drug to do him in. A more realistic choice would be to add it to food or drink, but I do like the idea of introducing the poison through the eyes. It's a good twist.

Strychnine works in ten to twenty minutes, and its effects are very dramatic. It is a neurologic toxin that attacks the central nervous system and typically causes seizurelike muscular activity before death. It does not cause true grand mal seizures, which result from chaotic electrical impulses in the brain. Rather, strychnine attacks the nerves that enervate the muscles.

Symptoms begin with the victim's developing a stiffness in his neck and face, followed by spasms in his arms and legs. Any sound or movement can trigger a wave of erratic and powerful muscular contractions. These spastic contractions increase, and the large muscles of the back begin to contract, pulling the body into an arched position (a posture called opisthotonus). These symptoms are similar to those found in tetanus. The victim dies of asphyxia since he cannot breathe.

At death the victim usually has an arched back, eyes wide open, and the mouth pulled into a broad grimace—called the death smile, or
risus sardonicus.
This is the stuff of nightmares.

Rigor mortis typically sets in immediately in deaths associated with violent muscular activity, as is seen in strychnine poisonings, so that the body is frozen in this posture. The reason that rigor occurs quickly is that the violent contractions of the muscles consume the intramuscular enzymes (predominately adenosine triphosphate, or ATP). In typical rigor mortis it is the depletion of these enzymes that causes the muscles to contract, producing the rigid phase of rigor. In situations such as strychnine poisoning or deaths associated with seizure activity, this depletion of the ATP occurs more rapidly, so that the rigid phase of rigor occurs more quickly. Over the next twenty-four hours, as the muscles decompose, they lose their contractile property, causing the relaxation phase of rigor.

Your victim will thus have a very quick onset of the rigid phase and will hold this strychnine posture—arched back, grimacing smile, eyes wide—for twelve to twenty-four hours or so. Then, as the rigor resolves, the muscles will relax, and the face and body will, too. So three weeks won't work. He would look like any other three-week-old corpse, and the M.E. would have to perform toxicologic tests to determine the presence of strychnine.

What Is the Lethal Dose of Strychnine in Humans and in Various Animals?

Q: I have a question about strychnine as a poison. What dosages would kill a mouse, a rat, a cat, a dog, a monkey, and then a human? My criminal is going to do some experiments that will ultimately lead to his poisoning his victim.

A: The lethal dose in the average adult human is 100 to 120 milligrams (mg). The average adult weighs 70 kilograms (kg), or about 154 pounds (1 kg equals 2.2 lb). That calculates to a lethal dose of 1.4 to 1.7 mg per kg, or 0.65 to 0.78 mg per lb. So if we take an average lethal dose of 0.7 mg per pound, we can estimate the following lethal doses:

This assumes that strychnine works in these various mammalian species in the same way, which it probably does. Regardless, these should be ballpark numbers.

Is There a Poison That Causes Stomach Distention and Death?

Q: For a short story I'm writing I'd like the victim, who is pregnant, to die with a distended stomach. Whatever poison I use has to be put into a drink. Could lead poisoning lead to a quick death? I've read that the effect is slow and progressive. What would be the effect on the fetus? And what would be the best source of lead that could be camouflaged in a drink?

A: Lead can be used as an acute poison, but it is more of a cumulative poison. Chronic exposure causes a multitude of medical problems and ultimately death. A large dose taken orally could do the trick but would be difficult to hide in a drink. Toxic forms would be lead carbonate, lead monoxide, and lead sulfate. The most toxic would be lead arsenate because it contains arsenic. It is a white powder and is found in many pesticides and veterinary tapeworm medicine. This could be dissolved in a drink and would do the trick. For that matter, arsenic would, too. A popular poison for centuries, it has become a cliche, as you know, but it works.

Acute arsenic poisoning causes a breakdown of the lining of the stomach and intestines with bleeding. It inflames the blood vessels and causes them to leak. This leads to gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and pulmonary edema, which is the accumulation of fluid in the lungs. Also, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, sometimes bloody, can occur. Finally, delirium, seizures, coma, and death occur.

Another choice might be mercury. Found in thermometers and

some batteries, it is readily available. It is more potent if the vapors are inhaled rather than if it is ingested. It has a low boiling point of about 40 degrees centigrade and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. (Water boils at 100 degrees C. and 212 degrees F.)

Water containing mercury could be boiled. The vapors would enter the air, and the victim would inhale them and die fairly quickly. Symptoms would be nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, salivation, fever, cough, shortness of breath, and a metallic taste in the mouth. The reaction time is almost immediate. With ingestion the reaction time is about a half hour, and symptoms are similar.

Another very good choice that could fit your scenario is carbon tetrachloride (carbon tet for short). It is found in dry cleaning agents, household spot removers, and some fire extinguishers. Its effects are increased when taken with alcohol. This colorless liquid has a distinctive and strong odor that must be masked. Symptoms are abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, confusion, shortness of breath, shock, coma, and death. It also has a low boiling point, and so a vapor as described above could be produced and would be immediately toxic. Its boiling point is 77 degrees C. and 171 degrees F.

Any of these could also be toxic for the fetus, and, of course, if the victim died, the fetus would, too, unless an emergency cesarean section was performed.

Although any of these would work, I think mercury or carbon tet would be best. I particularly like the idea of a vapor, but that doesn't fit your original plot idea.

How Deadly Are Death Cap Mushrooms, and What Do They Do to the Victim?

Q: In my story a murder is committed by feeding the victim a death cap mushroom. I need to know how quickly it acts and what reactions the victim would have before death.