Poisons Abi Barnes
Aconite
A poison is a substance that can cause illness or death among an organism when introduced to the body and a toxin is a poison that originates from an animal or plant; a lethal dose is an amount of something that will cause death.
The different types of poisons are those from various different types of animals, medicines, common household cleaning products, mushrooms and plants. In their own way all poisons are helpful, such as for animals; animals use poisons as a defence technique against their predators, as do some plants. Cleaning products are harmful if ingested, inhaled, or sometimes even when they come into contact with skin, but they are also helpful to sanitize and clean our home and/or …show more content…
The name aconite originates from the Greek name akonitos, ak meaning ‘pointed’ or ‘sharp’ and konos meaning ‘cone’, and was initially used to kill wolves, hence the name wolf’s bane.
The aconitum plant consists of over 350 different species of plant, all with either a violet-blue, almost purple flower shaped like a helmet or a yellow flower; the most well common aconite in Europe is the aconitum napellus, which features the violet-blue flowers. The roots are the most poisonous part of the plant, although the entire aconitum plant is poisonous, however this is only specific to the violet-blue coloured flowering plants; the yellow flowered plants, most commonly known as eranthis are not poisonous.
Aconitine, which is a highly poisonous alkaloid derived from the aconitum plants has a chemical formula of C34H47NO11.
Aconitum napellus is found wild in some parts of England, mostly in the western counties and also in South Wales and it’s habitat is most commonly mountain slopes; therefore the plant can also be found in parts of the Himalayas and …show more content…
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Because aconite is such a dangerous plant, handling it has been restricted to medical personnel only; the therapeutic dose of aconite is very close to the toxic dose and even the smallest amount can cause severe poisoning and anything too large can cause immediate death. It is believed that just 2-4g of aconite, 5mL of tincture or 3mg of aconitine is a lethal dose to a human.
Aconite poisoning symptoms include, speech difficulty, numbness of the mouth and throat, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, muscular paralysis and convulsions and it can cause slowed respiration, respiratory paralysis and also cardiac arrhythmias.
There is currently no treatment that can reverse the effects of aconite poisoning, but the poison can be remove from the gastrointestinal tract or the affected person can be given medication to prevent the arrhythmias, which can be