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Mechanism and Side effects of Aconite poisoning
in Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience
Posted
Hey guys. I hope this is the right place for it, a more academic question that demands experts to answer. The poison from Aconitum napellus (Monkshood/Wolfsbane) has found it´s way into my notes form a pharmacology training. However, details are hard to come by, and for a Biologist rather than a Medic hard to verify. To study the clinical picture of the poisoning I gained access to the publications in the bottom of this post.
A few questions remain for me that I hoped you might help with.
Aconite prolongs the opening phase of Na+-channels, although I don´t know about subtype sicificity. This would be why Class 1 antiarrhythmics seem to be most potent here, although still fickle. In limbs and skeletal muscle this leads to paresthesia and generalized weakness. Gastrointestinal features include nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. In the referred-to papers, after onset of symptoms it took usually an hour, in a case much less for the patient to faint/ collapse. It wasn´t always obvious if "collapsed" was to be understood as "loss of consciousness". Postmortem examination in a case of accidental ingestion, likely of monkshood leaves, revealed this: "Internal examination showed severe congestion of all organs. Histologic examination revealed bilateral massive intrapulmonary hemorrhage and edema." (Pullela et al.).
I´d like to make the following assumption. An extract of neatly minced, uncooked (not thermostable) aconite root in about a mustard glass of red wine, possibly cut with vinegar (for solubility) is injected into the rectum. This is without question far beyond a lethal dose. That way the toxin would circumvent the liver passage. Questions:
Thanks for any insight!
Best, Indi
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