Text: Henk's loneliness
Henk's Loneliness
In the countryside, a plant castor can be seen everywhere on the roadside, and in some film and television dramas, it often appears as an assassination poison, which can easily take people's lives.
However, for this highly toxic plant, the state has not isolated it, but has vigorously supported the cultivation, and castor beans also play a pivotal role in other countries.
Is castor really as toxic as in film and television dramas? If it is highly toxic, why do countries still promote cultivation?
The Invisible "Hidden Weapon"
Presumably, we all saw castor beans in the countryside when we were children, and we all knew that castor beans were poisonous.
But in film and television dramas, there are often people who use castor as poison to kill people, and some people can't help but wonder, is castor really that toxic?
In fact, there is no exaggeration in film and television dramas, castor is a very toxic plant, in reality, countless people have died of ricin, the most famous of which is the "umbrella assassination" incident.
In 1978, George Markov, a famous BBC presenter, was on his way to work when he noticed a man in a suit wearing sunglasses in front of him.
The strange thing is that it is not raining, but this man is holding an umbrella in his hand.
When George Markov passed by the man, the man put away the umbrella, and the tip of the umbrella pierced Markov's leg.
Markov felt a sharp pain, and the man apologized to Markov, who didn't bother and went straight to work.
Afterwards, Markov felt that the place where he had been pierced became more and more painful, and the wound became a red rash, which could only be scribbled and bandaged.
It wasn't until the next day that Markov began to vomit and diarrhea and began to have a fever, that Markov realized that something was wrong and immediately went to the hospital for treatment.
After arriving at the hospital, Markov fell into a coma, and the doctors examined Markov's whole body, but could not find the cause of the disease, and finally Markov died.
Since George Markoff had told doctors that his symptoms were suspected to be poisoning, the police ordered an autopsy and found nothing unusual at first.
Until a doctor found a small wound on the back of Markov's calf, and after closer inspection, he found a small ball of platinum-iridium alloy the size of a needle in the middle.
The pellet is only 1.7 mm in diameter and has two 0.35 mm holes that contain trace amounts of ricin.
As the ball pierces the umbrella into Mark's body, the toxin inside gradually spreads, leading to Mark's death.
This is just one of the many assassinations in history, and there are many more such assassinations in history.
"The Perfect Poison"
Ricin and ricin, especially ricin, are the main components that cause human poisoning.
This toxicity is three times more toxic than cobra toxin and more than 100 times more potent than cyanide.
Children under the age of seven can be poisoned by eating 2 castor beans, and even death if they eat too much, while adults can die if they eat 20 capsules.
If you change to castor beans produced in Africa, it only takes two to kill adults, and only one for children.
Just eating a few castor seeds can lead to death, not to mention ricin purified from castor seeds, 7 milligrams can kill people.
Moreover, there is no specific antidote to castor poisoning, and it can only rely on methods such as vomiting and gastric lavage, and these methods can also be used when you have just eaten it by mistake.
However, due to the long incubation period of ricin, if you do not know it when you ingest it, it will cause death within two to three days if it has been absorbed by the time the symptoms occur.
It can be seen that ricin has strong cytotoxicity.
But even so, in the 50s of the last century, the mainland still planted castor beans on a large scale in the North China Plain, and there was even a children's song "I Plant Castor for the Motherland" at that time.
Why does the mainland grow castor beans on a large scale? What are the benefits of growing castor beans?
The two-sided nature of castor
Castor is a genus of castor in the family Euphorbiaceae, annual or perennial, due to different varieties, castor looks different, generally stout herbaceous or grassy shrubs, some can grow up to 5 meters.
The leaves are palmate and divided, the edges are serrate, and the petioles are thick and hollow.
The fruit of castor beans is spherical in shape, with long soft spines on the skin, and the seeds are flattened and oval-shaped, with markings on them, usually light brown or grayish-white.
The whole body of the castor bean is poisonous, and the part that is highly poisonous is the castor seed.
Everything has two sides, although castor is poisonous, but its whole body is a treasure, castor plays a great role in our daily life.
Experiments have proved that the ricin contained in castor seeds has an obvious effect on anti-tumor and can inhibit the spread of a variety of tumor cells.
At the same time, the oil of castor beans also has a lot of use value.
Castor oil can be used as a laxative, while castor oil itself does not have a laxative effect, after taking it, castor oil interacts with lipolytic enzymes to produce a substance called ricinoleic acid.
Ricinoleic acid will stimulate the small intestine, so that intestinal peristalsis is enhanced, and the purpose of diarrhea is achieved.
After ricinoleic acid is absorbed by the body, it will be metabolized by the body like other fatty acids, so castor oil is relatively safe compared to other laxatives.
Moreover, castor oil can also be used as a skin lubricant for other skin diseases such as dermatitis, because it itself is less irritating, and it can also be used for burns and ulcers.
In the 50s of the last century, New China had just been established, and castor beans became the main cash crop at that time.
Castor oil has a high viscosity and its low freezing point, so it can be used as a raw material in many light industries and also as a plasticizer.
Later, scientists not only found that its freezing point is low, its ignition point is also high, and lubricating oil must be used in some industries, and it was naturally the best choice at that time with a high ignition point.
Not only mulberry leaves can also be used to raise silkworms, but also castor beans, the castor beans planted by farmers can be sold to the state, and the remaining castor beans are used to raise silkworms.
After the oil is pressed, castor beans can be used as natural waste without the need to buy new fertilizer, and the rhizomes of castor beans can also be used to make paper.
However, castor beans with such a high economic role have very low environmental requirements, and can be found in most parts of the continent, and even in the saline-alkali land that is talked about discoloring.
summary
Castor beans have a lot of value, and their functional value is likely to surpass that of oil, and it is also known as "oil grown in the ground".
But unlike oil, castor is an inexhaustible resource, so it is listed as one of the important strategic materials by the United States.
The value of castor beans in the future production and life is immeasurable.
Although the mainland is also a big producer of castor beans, the annual supply of castor beans is still in short supply and needs to be imported from foreign countries.
In conclusion, castor beans have important economic and medicinal value in the mainland.
We need to improve the technology and increase the yield, and at the same time develop the deep processing industry to increase the added value of castor. With the continuous development of technology, we believe that more preciousness of castor beans will be discovered.