There is a poison that is strangely poisonous and has no antidote, and it "lurks" around us.
Studies have shown that as long as 0.2 mg is injected, it can "take away" an adult, which is thousands of times more toxic than arsenic.
In Western countries, it was even used for assassinations, and BBC journalist George Ivanov Markov was killed – he was secretly injected with 0.45 mg.
This poison is ricin, which originates from castor beans.
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In China, poisoning of students who mistakenly eat castor beans has occurred repeatedly.
Some netizens shared their experiences with Xiaojiu:
When I was in elementary school, the school organized the collection of castor, the teacher reminded that the poison could not be eaten, when picking a classmate peeled off the shell and ate two or three, I also tried two, but after biting it, I vomited and did not swallow. At night, I came home with symptoms of dizziness and nausea, and the next day, the classmate who ate castor did not come, I heard that the poisoning was very severe, and it took a week of treatment to retrieve a life, and it was also a big fate.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > how toxic is ricin? There is no specific antidote</h1> yet
In some places, castor is also known as hemp seed, and rural people over the age of 60 know what hemp seed oil is. Castor is an herb, and the fruit of castor beans can be used to press oil. The surface of castor beans is smooth, with gray-white and black-brown or reddish-brown floral markings, one side is flatter, the other side is more raised, the seed skin is thin and crisp, and it looks like it can be eaten.
However, it is such a cash crop that it is poisonous all over the body.
Its main toxins are ricine and ricin, which was isolated and named by a German chemist in 1888 and is a potent cytotoxic protein that can cause poisoning death by oral, inhaled, intramuscular or intravenous injection, with an incubation period of 4 to 8 hours.
After ricin toxicity, the first symptom is itching and burning sensation in the throat, followed by vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and eventually will lead to dehydration, acidosis, proteinuria, hematuria and anutia and other organ failure symptoms, with the drop of blood pressure, if rescue treatment is not carried out, patients will die of multi-organ failure.
Currently, ricin has no effective anti-toxic agents and no antidote.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > such a poison, why is it still widely cultivated in China? </h1>
Purified ricin, ricin as long as a small amount can cause adults to die, children eat 1-2 raw, adults eat 3-12 raw unpurified castor beans, may lead to poisoning and death.
In April 2006, as many as 131 students were poisoned by accidentally eating castor beans in Jing County, Shaanxi Province, and in November 2012, there was an incident of collective poisoning of children who accidentally ate castor beans in Fujian, and 8 of the 22 cases of poisoning were seriously ill.
At the end of September this year, White House in the United States received another letter containing ricin, which is not uncommon. During World War II, the major participating countries planned to use ricin to make biological and chemical weapons, not to mention that in the more than half century after the war, criminals often used ricin to create tragedies.
U.S. workers wore protective clothing and checked mail sent to the Pentagon. Source: Agence France-Presse
Some people may wonder why they are still cultivated on a large scale if they are poisonous.
Castor beans are poisonous, but it was also a major cash crop a few decades ago. Although ricin is strong, it has a fatal flaw, that is, it is not resistant to high temperatures, and it will soon lose its toxicity when exposed to heat.
Castor beans can be used to press oil, is a good industrial raw material, in the production project there is a high temperature and alkaline treatment link, so there is no toxicity after oil pressing. However, self-pressed castor oil cannot be eaten, because the temperature of the general traditional extraction technique is not too high, and there will be residual toxins, while the toxicity of industrial extraction oil is completely eliminated.
Some of the soaps and cosmetics we use in our daily lives are made of castor oil.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > accidentally eat castor beans, so rescue! </h1>
Adults have a certain degree of discrimination for castor, and also know its toxicity, but children because of poor discrimination, prone to accidental ingestion incidents, so in life, should be in school to carry out safety education publicity, improve students' understanding of castor beans, to avoid accidental ingestion poisoning incidents.
Once there is a misenching incident, it is necessary to seek medical treatment in time so as not to delay the treatment. At present, the clinical treatment method used to rescue acute poisoning is mainly blood perfusion, which is to introduce the patient's blood into a perfusion device equipped with a solid adsorbent, and remove the endogenous or endogenous toxins from the blood through adsorption, which belongs to the blood purification technology. To put it in layman's terms, it's like a filtering method that filters out toxins in the blood.
However, in general, through extensive science publicity, the whole society is the most effective prevention method to maximize the awareness of the toxicity of castor and increase vigilance.
#Healthy Living Diary ##39健康超能团 #
Resources:
[1] The Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued an early warning: Beware of castor seed poisoning. Yunnan Cd-operative Center.2018.4.17
[2] How toxic is the castor toxin sent? It was used in a terrorist attack and there is no cure!.Xiaoxiang Morning Post.2020.9.20
[3] Canadian police arrested a woman in Montreal suspected of sending ricin letters to the United States. World Wide Web.2020.9.22
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