The Gory Details (Gross)

The Gory Details #12: "Don't Drink the Coffee"

In the interest of professionalism, the Gore Monger makes it his practice to spend at least five minutes on each gory topic he covers. (More if there are pictures.) This month is no different. Preparing for the weighty topic of poisons, I went straight out to the American Associations of Poison Control Centers' web site to learn just what a poison is. This is their definition:

"Poison: Any product or substance that can harm someone if it is used in the wrong way, by the wrong person, or in the wrong amount."

Oh well. That clears things up. Or does it? Consider this; a five hundred pound professional wrestler in silver underwear staples your tongue to a cactus with a power stapler. I would say that that's the wrong person to be operating a power stapler, cactus' are not appropriate tongue restraining devices and any staple to tongue force is the wrong amount. So that would be the wrong way, wrong person, wrong amount. Staples are poisonous! So are shotguns, politicians and frisbees. And wait. The vacuum of space would be the wrong amount of atmosphere meaning that absolutely nothing is a poison in its own right. I wouldn't want to say anything critical about the AAPCC but I don't really think we can trust people who are afraid of a cup of coffee. "My God man, put that down! Don't you know there's water in there?!"

So, let's talk about poisons Gore Monger Style. First, some poisons that will make you bleed.

Corrosives - Any acid, oxidizing agents and lots of other things are corrosive. Some of these, like vinegar are mild and cause nasty things like canker sores and owies. Others, like Drain-o and caustic lye burn right through human skin. They literally dissolve flesh. Skin exposed to these materials may blister or break immediately down and begin bleeding. In extreme cases like concentrated sulfuric acid, tissue dissolves and boils away just like getting splattered by the acid in an Alien movie. These can also be very destructive to lung tissues if breathed and are likely to be toxic to brain cells. To have real fun with these products have a character drink some; death to the vocal cords, death to the ability to swallow, death to the stomach. What fun! If you want to simulate hemorrhagic fever, give someone a big syringe full of one of these and watch as their vessel walls collapse and they bleed out into their organs. It's watching their eyeballs fill with blood while they're still screaming that does it for me.

Things Not Normally Poisonous - There are miles of fun to be had subjecting your characters to things that aren't normally toxic but can behave as if poisonous. According to the definition above, consumption of large quantities of water as happens in some mental illnesses and frat parties that results in blood thinning and sever plural edema makes water a poison.

Another set of fun non-poisons are gasses. Carbon monoxide from car emission and other burning is toxic because it will bond with hemoglobin in the blood, preventing oxygen pickup in the lungs. What people don't think about is that inert carbon dioxide can kill as well. There are a group of lakes over volcanically active spots in Africa that are known to "turn over" releasing tonnes of CO2. This isn't so bad, unless you happen to be down wind where all the regular atmosphere is displaced. Standing in the wide open, every animal for miles down wind is killed. The same is true for any gas. What about a guy in a sealed room with a leaking helium tank? Fun fun.

Salt, dry rice, and baking soda are all non-toxins that could kill you if abused.

The Poison World - Plants and animals, surprisingly, don't seem to want to be eaten. Many have resorted to poisons. Some, like some Caribbean palm trees, produce corrosive sap, as above. Others, like the poison dart frog produce neurotoxins as below. Here are a few fun things to think about, when you think plant and animal toxins.

Some plant toxins (wild potato seeds for one) produce Alkalis. In the wild potato, this will severely limit fat uptake in the poisoned. It can literally be get a cheese burger or die.

The Komodo Dragon does not actually produce poison. A very nasty bacteria lives in its mouth and it dines by infecting victims then tracking them down when the wound starts to smell.

The vast majority of plant and animal toxins are not normally fatal. A bee doesn't need to kill you to drive you away. It only needs to instill some pain. Even killer bees are not more toxic than European bees. They just have this really aggressive streak. Steroids?

Neurotoxins - Most things that show up in stories about poison are neurotoxins; anything that acts on the nervous system.

Most overdoses are of CNS (cental nervous system) depressants. CNS depressants stop something in brain/body messaging. In appearance, someone with CNS depression will become sluggish, disoriented and slip into a coma before dying. At the extremes are the poison dart frog who's poison is like a super pain killer that stops signal transmission and Rysperadal (and anti-psychotic) that stops brain messaging. At the end, they're the same; signal stops arriving at the heart and other organ systems, shutting them down.

Exactly the opposite of this are CNS stimulants. (Yeah, caffeine!) These toxins trigger excessive action from the CNS. Someone effected by one of these drugs will become rigid or seizure. There are a wide variety of these drugs with different effects. The black widow kills by paralyzing its victims who then suffocate because they can't breathe. Anything with a "do not induce vomiting" warning on the label is capable of disturbing brain activity enough to inspire a seizure. (Drowning on your own vomit the middle of a seizure? It's almost too gory for the Gore Monger...No, no I'm O.K. with that.)

And you thought Poison was a bad hair metal band. Now get out there and write. 

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