From: Patrick Wilken (patrickw@cs.monash.edu.au)
Date: Sat Oct 02 1999 - 20:05:15 MDT
> << I'm pretty sure there's something useful out there. Perhaps
> some animal toxin (http://www.uq.edu.au/~ddbfry/menu.html
> has quite a list). "Zombie powder" is made from some kind
> of fish poison, afaik. It would certainly take someone out,
> but perhaps there would be some, uh, brain damage (though
> it is also suggested that the brain damage is a result of
> oxigen deprivation in the coffin, and not the toxin itself).>>
Puffer fish poison is not a non-lethal toxin. You have to
be extremely careful about dosage. A little too high and
the person dies a quick and horrible death. Check out
stories on fugu poisioning. Interestingly the fish do not
directly produce the poison (those raised from eggs in
captivity are non-poisonous - it is created by
symbiotic bacteria. For those Australians on the list
this same bacteria produce the poison used by blue-ringed
octopus (though in this case the octopus actually collects
the toxin in its poison fangs).
Have a look at:
http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/fugu.html
for some case histories of poisoning.
best, patrick
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