THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE

NOVEMBER 1999 ISSUE

THE POISON SLEUTHS

DEATH BY CICUTOXIN

-Dr. Anil Aggrawal

"Good morning doctor. Oh, my God, what are you doing today? You have the dead body of a middle aged man today. What happened to him? Please tell me.”

“Good morning Tarun. The name of this man is Radhey and he is about 54 years old. He was a carpenter by profession and had been in good health till yesterday. Yesterday morning he went to catch some fish in a nearby lake, along with his friend Shyam. Both of them were very friendly. While they were fishing, a person by the name of Lal came there and offered some sweet potatoes to them. Sweet potatoes as you perhaps know are known as ShakkarKandi in Hindustani. Both of them ate some of it. Shyam however spat out after one bite, because he thought it was not tasting how it should be. Radhey took some lusty bites from it, because he was hungry, and he liked its taste too. Half an hour after eating the plant, Radhey felt nauseated and dizzy and had stomach pains. Following this, he suddenly stiffened, fell on the ground unconscious, and made gross, irregular movements of his arms and legs. Shyam was alright by this time.”

“Oh, from the story it appears to me, that Lal had given Radhey some poison mixed in sweet potatoes.”

“Yeah, it sure does. The police has investigated into the background of Lal, and they have found that Lal held some grudge against Radhey. He wanted to settle an old score with him. So it does appear that Lal had a motive to give him some poison. The question is whether we can prove he gave him some poison or not. According to the only eye witness available - Shyam - the only thing Lal gave to Radhey was sweet potatoes. And sweet potatoes are not poisonous. So the police is going to have a tough time in the court proving anything against Lal. Sure enough they are banking heavily on my investigation.”

“So what have you found doctor?”

“Let me complete my story first. About one and a half hour after eating the sweet potatoes, Radhey was admitted to a hospital emergency room. On the way to the hospital, he was reported to have had four convulsions. I have asked the doctors who treated Radhey, about his condition when they first saw him. They tell me that when he was brought to them - at about 10 am yesterday - he was comatosed, and was bluish all over. This bluishness is known as cyanosis in medical terminology.”

“Oh, that is terrible!”

“Yes. He was not responding to any painful stimuli, which means he was really in a deep coma. His blood pressure was normal, but his pulse was more than twice the normal- about 150 per minute. The normal rate as you know is about 72 per minute. His breathing was stertorous. He was perspiring extensively, drooling saliva from his mouth, and his parotid glands were markedly swollen. He alternately clenched and ground his teeth and made chewing movements. His tongue was bleeding from a left sided laceration. His arms and legs showed intermittent, coarse, uncoordinated, and restless movements. He had extreme but intermittent muscle spasms, in particular of the muscles of shoulder and neck, causing throwing back of the neck. The pupils of his eyes were markedly constricted. In fact so constricted were they, that the doctors told me they were like pin points. You know that normally the pupils have a diameter of about 4mm. In this case, they were smaller than half a mm. His eyes were red. The eyeballs protruded somewhat.”

“Oh, Radhey must surely have died dreadfully. What did the doctors diagnose?”

“They couldn’t know what had befallen Radhey. They gave some conservative treatment, but Radhey’s condition worsened and he expired yesterday night at about 10 pm, about 14 hours after having ingested those mysterious ‘sweet potatoes’.”

“Doctor, how do you think Radhey must have died? I think Lal injected some poison in those sweet potatoes.”

“He probably could have done that. But by listening to the history of this case, and after talking to the doctors, I can only think of one poison.”

“What is that poison doctor. Please tell me. I am getting curious.”

“Tarun, the symptoms are so peculiar that there could only have been one poison- Water hemlock.”

“What? Water hemlock? Never heard of it as a poison. Could you tell me more about it please?”

“Tarun, Water Hemlock is a member of the genus Cicuta, of the Umbelliferae family of plants. There are nine subspecies of Cicuta, and all are very poisonous. Cicuta virosa is the common European water hemlock, and Cicuta maculata and Cicuta douglasii are the varieties found in North America. These varieties are found in India also. Common eponyms for Cicuta are cowbane, five-finger root, snake weed, wild carrot, dead man’s fingers, poison parsnip, wild parsnip, beaver poison, muskrat weed, spotted hemlock, spotted cowbane, musquash root, false parsley, fever root, mockeel root, wild dill, spotted parsley and carotte à moreau. They are found in marshy sloughs and meadows and on the banks of streams. Cicuta plants are difficult plants to identify, which may explain why Radhey mistook them for sweet potatoes. In fact, they have been mistaken for many diverse edible plants such as artichokes, celery, sweet potatoes, sweet anise, and wild parsnip. Cicuta plants are difficult to identify in the early spring, when only the fleshy swollen roots, particularly toxic at this time, are present. Later in the year, the roots are less poisonous, but the leaves and stem then contain sufficient poison to prove fatal if ingested.”

“Oh, I see. What is the poisonous substance present in these plants doctor?”

“Cicutoxin. Chemically, it is a highly unsaturated higher alcohol. Its formula -if you care- is:

HOCH₂ (CH₂)₂ (C≡C)₂ (CH=CH)₃ CH(OH)CH₂CH₂CH₃

There is another poison in these plants, and that is Oenanthotoxin. This is found in Cicuta virosa, and is actually an isomer of cicutoxin. It was first isolated by a scientist Boehm in 1876 and was crystallized by Clarke in 1949.”

“Doctor, how do these poisons actually kill the person?”

“Tarun, Cicutoxin belongs to a category of poisons known as cholinergic poisons. This name comes from a natural substance found in the nerve endings, acetylcholine. You may be surprised to know that although acetylcholine is normally found in nerve endings - in fact it is essential for muscle contraction - an excess of this substance can prove dangerous to human body. Many insecticides such as organophosphorus compounds also show cholinergic effects and prove poisonous because of that.”

“Oh, I see. Please tell me more about these poisons doctor.”

“Cholinergic poisons exhibit two main groups of symptoms. One are called muscarinic effects, because they resemble the symptoms caused by eating a poisonous mushroom Amanita muscaria. These symptoms include salivation, perspiration and constriction of pupils. In fact, the moment I heard these symptoms from the doctor, coupled with the information that Radhey had been given “sweet potatoes” by a potential foe, I came to the conclusion that he had been given the root of some plant of the Cicuta species. The second group of symptoms is called the nicotinic effects, because they include symptoms caused by nicotine, a very poisonous alkaloid found in tobacco. Main among these symptoms are muscle twitchings and convulsions.”

“Doctor, we have all the circumstantial evidence that Lal gave some poisonous roots to Radhey, but how are you conclusively going to prove in the court that Lal indeed gave him this substance?”

“Tarun, I have taken the stomach contents of Radhey and have done a chemical test on that. They have proved positive for Cicutoxin and Oenanthotoxin. This surely means he has been given Cicuta roots by Lal. I did not stop at that. I specifically asked the police to raid Lal’s house. They raided and found many more such roots. Here they are, and any botanist can tell to the court that they are roots of Cicuta plants. Do we need any more proof than that?”

"Surely not doctor. That was very clever of you doctor. Without your clever deduction - especially your noticing the peculiar symptoms of Radhey at the time of his death, and your sound knowledge of botany- everybody would have thought he died of some mysterious natural disease. This was a most interesting discussion doctor. Tell me what are you going to tell me the next time?"

"Tarun, next time, I would tell you about a very interesting poison- Brodifacoum."