I think enough nitroglycerine that you have to drink it would be a massive overdose, even if stomach acid destroys it. This chemical is rapidly absorbed through the lining of the mouth. I’ve taken it for what they thought might be angina (though it turned out not to be). It gave me a throbbing headache, which it does to a large percentage of people who take it.
The thing is, I was dissolving one little tablet under my tongue, and it only took about 10 seconds for the headache to start. This is the fastest drug I’ve ever had, even compared to IV opioids. Most of the 10 seconds, I’m told, is the time it takes for blood to travel from inside the skin of the mouth to the head (which I think is a roundabout trip including two passes through the heart). I think if you drank a vial and in the process thought, maybe I better sit down, you’d be too late.
Bear in mind that the tablet Treppenwitz links to has a dose about half the volume of a grain of salt.
My dad worked for a chemical firm and told me about workers in the munitions factories in Britain during the war who would take a small bottle of nitroglycerin to sniff on holidays - they worked around the stuff in the factory. When they were off work and not exposed for a while they would get splitting headaches as the blood vessels in the brain (among others) stopped dilating. Sniffing occasionally prevented this. Nitro pills were a common plot point in old movies and books - “This indicated a heart condition”. I’m imagining any normal amount would be sufficiently diluted throughout the body fairly quickly as to be pretty safe from a big bang. Someone running around with a 10-ounce bottle is probably an accident waiting to happen.
According to this safety sheet, the LD-50 (orally) of nitroglycerine is 105 mg/kg in rats. Assuming a similar figure for humans, a shotglass would be enough to kill half a dozen. :eek:
In my teenage years, me and some buddies of mine used to make the stuff in moderate quantities (you could buy concentrated nitric acid at the hardware store back then!), to blow things up at the local garbage dump down in the quarry. Fun times, although I recollect sometimes getting a severe headache…!
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