Timeline for Can a substance be more lethal in smaller doses?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
21 events
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| Jun 3, 2018 at 23:39 | comment | added | Stephan Branczyk | This reminds me of a news story of a man trapped in a cleaning van after he had killed a loved one. As his van was surrounded by the police, he tried to commit suicide by drinking bleach, but if he threw it all up. So then, he tries drinking drain cleaner, but that doesn't work either because the drain cleaner makes a hole in his throat and ends up pouring out through it. In any case, bleach can decontaminate water to make it drinkable but add too much to it (just not enough to make you throw up) and it will eventually kill you. I remember a woman who intentionally killed her children that way | |
| S Jun 1, 2018 at 14:51 | history | suggested | Stevoisiak | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Link Alberto's answer
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| Jun 1, 2018 at 13:43 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jun 1, 2018 at 14:51 | |||||
| May 31, 2018 at 12:52 | comment | added | F1Krazy | @Cbm.cbm Copper sulfate is still an emetic. It still makes you throw up if you ingest it. We just don't use it for that purpose anymore. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 12:49 | comment | added | Cbm.cbm | @marcelm "So why do you think a substance that is poisonous cannot be an emetic?" Because we have a name for poisons! "Copper sulfate was also used in the past as an emetic. It is now considered too toxic for this use." So it's no longer considered to be one?! | |
| May 31, 2018 at 9:24 | comment | added | F1Krazy | @marcelm I did actually mention copper sulfate in a draft of my answer, but removed it before posting it (it's only harmful if you take too much, and does nothing if you take too little, which is the opposite of what OP is after). | |
| May 31, 2018 at 9:18 | comment | added | marcelm | @Cbm.cbm Definitions of emetic I've seen simply state that it's a substance that induces vomiting. I haven't come across a definition that excludes toxicity. So why do you think a substance that is poisonous cannot be an emetic? Wikipedia even states "Copper sulfate was also used in the past as an emetic. It is now considered too toxic for this use.", clearly showing that emetics can be toxic. The question is then, in what quantity? | |
| May 30, 2018 at 18:56 | comment | added | Cbm.cbm | @marcelm Yes he has : "many pills are coated in a small amount of emetic so you'll throw them up if you take too many." @ F1Krazy So you are proposing for a poison that in small doses makes you vomit and that kills you in large doses! That's no longer an emetic! The definition of emetic is pretty clear about this! Cadmium poisoning for example can make you vomit!...Maybe I am to strict about this but I really consider that calling it an emetic is incorrect! | |
| May 30, 2018 at 15:52 | comment | added | F1Krazy | @marcelm That's indeed what I meant, an emetic that's also highly poisonous if you don't take enough of it. | |
| May 30, 2018 at 13:29 | comment | added | marcelm | @Cbm.cbm There's no a hypothetical substance couldn't be both the poison and the emetic, and there's nothing in F1Krazy's answer that suggests using two substances. Don't confuse his example of current-day usage of emetics with the hypothetical substance. | |
| May 30, 2018 at 0:18 | comment | added | rackandboneman | Alcohol can be like that ... the next day hangover from a not-quite-emetic dose can be worse than when you threw up before going to sleep. | |
| May 29, 2018 at 16:05 | comment | added | Frax | The issue with this solution that you don't really need to use the same substance as the "antidote" - any other emetic would work, or even just mechanically induced vomiting. I guess that may be addressed by making it the most accessible emetic at hand. | |
| May 29, 2018 at 11:02 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| May 29, 2018 at 11:27 | |||||
| May 29, 2018 at 3:27 | comment | added | Shawn V. Wilson | @corsiKa That last part is absolutely true.... | |
| May 28, 2018 at 16:02 | comment | added | corsiKa | An advantage of this is you could drink a whole bunch of the poison to show it's not lethal to convince someone that it's okay. "Sure, you throw up and feel woozy for a few hours, but it does wonders for your immune system and the effects last a long time!! | |
| May 28, 2018 at 15:10 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | @Cbm.cbm I think you could justify it via the medieval tech level. They may simply not have been able to separate the poison from the emetic yet, so they may treat it as one. | |
| May 28, 2018 at 8:31 | comment | added | Mixxiphoid | Reminds me of Napoleons suicide attempt where he took poison, his body just started vomiting instead of dying. | |
| May 28, 2018 at 5:51 | comment | added | Cbm.cbm | This doesn't address the question! You are talking about 2 substances that have different actions! | |
| May 28, 2018 at 0:01 | comment | added | Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine | Rather than a single emetic that’s also a posion, the “poison” could simply be a substance which (like the pills mentioned) contains some mixture of the emetic (fast-acting, but only effective in large quantities) and the actual poison (effective in quite small doses, but only slowly absorbed by the body). To early science, if this blend was easy to extract from some natural ingredient, but hard to split into its components, it would seem like a single substance. | |
| May 27, 2018 at 23:41 | comment | added | undefined | Im not sure this would work, if a few pills are lethal and coated in an emetic its unlikely the subject would throw them all up, hence killing them anyway if they took a large number. | |
| May 27, 2018 at 19:44 | history | answered | F1Krazy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |