# The amazingly small amounts of stuff that can kill you **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 25, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491 "2021-01-25T21:41:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/21 "2021-01-26T18:29:05Z")
When I was in pharmacy school, carfentanil was mentioned just so we would know it existed. It’s always been used as a large-animal tranquilizer, and it is extremely difficult to legally obtain. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/22 "2021-01-27T05:25:50Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > The lethality of mercury always amazes me, given the frequency w/ which I and every other kid who could get some messed around with it back in the 60s. For some substances, the best-known properties depend on certain compounds, not the pure element. The “sulfur smell” that a lot of people know is actually a sulfur compound–hydrogen sulfide. Pure sulfur is odorless. Likewise, elemental mercury is relatively safe. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/23 "2021-01-27T13:23:35Z")
> [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](#): > > Someone once told me that Nicotine can kill you if ingested in very small amounts. Tobacco harvesters can get sick from just rubbing up against the plants: > **[Green Tobacco Sickness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Tobacco_Sickness)** > > Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS) is a type of nicotine poisoning caused by the transdermal absorption of nicotine from the surface of wet tobacco plants. Tobacco harvesters, whose clothing becomes saturated from tobacco wet with rain or morning dew, are at high risk of developing GTS. Workers can avoid getting this sickness by waiting to harvest until the tobacco leaves are dry, or by wearing a rain suit. Wet clothing that has come in contact with tobacco leaves should be removed immediately and Ni... > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Mercury’s lethality depends on which salt it is. Some are relatively inert, and others, like the one referenced earlier, are fatal on any direct exposure. The freaky thing in the Wetterhahn case is that it it wasn’t just a drop or two on her skin - it was a drop or two on her latex glove, and enough of that permeated directly through the glove, and _then_ through her skin, and then killed her almost a year later. > **[Karen Wetterhahn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn)** > > Karen Elizabeth Wetterhahn (October 16, 1948 – June 8, 1997), also known as Karen Wetterhahn Jennette, was an American professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, who specialized in toxic metal exposure. She died of mercury poisoning at the age of 48 due to accidental exposure to the extremely toxic organic mercury compound dimethylmercury (.mw-parser-output .template-chem2-su{display:inline-block;font-size:80%;line-height:1;vertical-align:-0.35em}.mw-parser-output .template-ch We... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/24 "2021-01-27T13:28:32Z")
I’ve always thought that one of the worst ways to die would be from a screw-up at work. Even worse if you had a year to consider the consequences of your mistake. Certainly in her case there was the mitigation that nobody knew quite how hazardous a procedure she’d been doing. But still. Poor woman. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/25 "2021-01-27T13:54:58Z")
And this is why I side eye people who deliberately get injections of the stuff to make themselves look less wrinkled. That’s a hell of a risk to take to “improve” your looks. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/26 "2021-01-27T15:31:30Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Tobacco harvesters can get sick from just rubbing up against the plants: So why doesn’t _smoking_ it kill you? I mean, right away. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/27 "2021-01-27T16:00:22Z")
The dose makes the poison. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/28 "2021-01-27T17:35:05Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > So why doesn’t _smoking_ it kill you? I mean, right away. A smoker smokes a cigarette for maybe five minutes, inhaling a small fraction of the smoke that comes from it and absorbing a small fraction of the nicotine present in that smoke. A field hand harvesting tobacco might be out in the field for hours, brushing up against rain/dew-drenched plants and soaking his sweaty, wet clothing in nicotine stew. His exposure to nicotine is continuous and lasts until he removes those clothes and showers - which, for the average migrant farm worker, is probably not until he gets home at the end of the day. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/29 "2021-01-27T19:40:59Z")
As **Stranger** noted, I think they’re equating pulmonary edema with ‘drowning.’ I think clinically speaking ‘drowning’ means immersion. There was a case locally several years ago where a kid aspirated some swimming pool water, and several hours later died from pulmonary edema as the result of a bad reaction–which goes back to the earlier quote " the way our bodies react means there may be nothing we can do to stop it." ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/30 "2021-01-28T00:50:37Z")
There was a plastic surgeon who occasionally did cosmetic Botox in my old town, and accidentally penetrated a blood vessel and the patient spent a few days in the ICU. The pharmacist who was working that night contacted Poison Control, who referred him to a place in Chicago that had the best antidote and it was flown to our town. The patient did recover. Heavy price to pay, that’s for sure. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2021, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491/31 "2021-01-28T00:52:20Z")
Back in the 1970s, two of my cousins worked in tobacco fields in the Southeast, a job similar to corn detasseling in the Midwest. Don’t know what they did, but it was indeed filthy and potentially dangerous, and also paid quite well for something a mid-teenager could do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-amazingly-small-amounts-of-stuff-that-can-kill-you/931491.md?page=1)