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goldenoranges
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Aconitine, Deadly?
So I was researching this plant when I came across a homeopathic website. I thought Aconitum was deadly when taken in large doses, yet right under the
product in the description they claim "You cannot overdose on homeopathic medicines. If you take fifteen tablets or five tablets (or 100 tablets for
that matter) AT ONE TIME it is one dose. You will stimulate your curative response one time. So, it is not a tragedy if more than six tablets fall
into the cap, just take them rather than risk putting a contaminated pill back into the bottle to contaminate the others in the bottle."
Is it just me or this saying this on a website where people buy aconitum for medicine a good way to get somebody killed?
http://www.absolutelythepurest.com/shop/product_view.asp?id=...
On another note, what I actually came here to ask, can anybody provide links to a journal or studies done on aconitine? I am looking, but I can't find
an answer to the question I am looking for. Would the aconitine alkaloid be more soluble in water or alcohol?
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careysub
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Ah, you know not of the ways of homeopathy!
It is a peculiar non-scientific belief system (though derived from science) that holds that the effectiveness of a medication increases as
the medicine is diluted. Potency is measured by the degree of dilution! Dilutions of one-to-one-million are common.
The most favorable term to use for homeopathic medicine is "placebo".
So a homeopathic aconitine dose at 100 times the "recommended" amount will still be harmless. It is probably not possible to ingest a harmful dose.
A quack medicine that I see pushed on TV called "Airborne" originally was homeopathic junk, but I now see it is instead a run-of-mile collection of
worthless vitamin supplements.
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Chemosynthesis
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Homeopathic remedies may not even contain any active ingredient at their dilutions.
Aconitine is almost insoluble in water, soluble in ethanol, and (according to Sigma) 500mg/mL soluble in chloroform.
What kind of journal studies do you want? Aconitine has been used in rats to induce ventricular cardiac arrhythmias.
PMID:19514874 is a meta analysis of literature published on human toxicity.
PMID:25095352 is a pharmacokinetic study of alkaloids which includes aconitine, done in beagle dogs.
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goldenoranges
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Thanks! I didn't know that, I assumed they were just packaging raw plant material into the pills haha. Figures 
And I was looking for studies done on rats with aconitine, but beagles work as well. Thank you very much for the information.
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unionised
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Traditional joke cited when people talk about homoeopathy.
http://xkcd.com/765/
Others include "real homoeopaths bang it on a lump of rubber" as a bumper sticker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy#Preparation
and the one about the homoeopath who forgot to take his pills and died of an overdose.
Aconitine is pretty spectacularly poisonous. I really wouldn't play with it if I were you.
On the other hand, those pills won't actually contain any aconitine.
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goldenoranges
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Laughing hard over the wiki article!
I don't plan on handling it, I was just interested in it because I read somewhere that in medieval times they put balls of burning monkshood roots
into catapults/trebeches and launched them into the castles. Sort of like the first ever chemical warfare haha! It does seem pretty toxic, I also read
that even handling the leaves on the plant can cause poisoning, which is ironic since the flower is so pretty. But I guess the more colorful things
are in nature the deadlier they are usually.
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DraconicAcid
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The "strength" of this "remedy" is 30C, which means they've taken their original solution of aconitine (of whatever concentration it was, in alcohol
or whatever) and diluted it by a factor of one hundred....thirty times. So if it started as 1 mol/L (which it almost assuredly didn't), its
concentration would not be 10^-60 mol/L, which would mean they'd lost their last molecule of the active substance in the average litre of solution
shortly after they were a third of the way done.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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Bert
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The ancient Greeks considered it a lovely arrow poison- Could be quite dangerous. If there were actualy any of it there...
(According to the infallible font of wisdom, AKA Wikipedia) Lethal oral dose: For humans the lowest published oral lethal dose of 28 μg/kg was
reported in 1969.
Rapopart’s Rules for critical commentary:
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3. Mention anything you have learned from your target.
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Anatol Rapoport was a Russian-born American mathematical psychologist (1911-2007).
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careysub
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Quote: Originally posted by Bert  | The ancient Greeks considered it a lovely arrow poison- Could be quite dangerous. If there were actualy any of it there...
(According to the infallible font of wisdom, AKA Wikipedia) Lethal oral dose: For humans the lowest published oral lethal dose of 28 μg/kg was
reported in 1969. |
It was investigated as a projectile poison in WWII as well.
A lethal dose of about 2 mg makes it ten times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide and roughly comparable to nerve gases (twice as toxic as tabun
actually, but about 40% as toxic as Sarin).
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Little_Ghost_again
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I had hopes for this discipline right up to the point that memory water was published. Hard to see how your going to overdoes on talcum powder and
binder.
Many alternative medicines work, I take an extract of stinging nettle and it helps with my digestion problems, but thats not homeopathic as the amount
I take is around 3g a day taken over 8 lots.
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
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goldenoranges
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That's interesting. It would probably work with a blow gun as well. Does anybody know if the poison stays in the meat after the animal dies from
aconitine poisoning? Or does it degrade after a period of time. I would say it sounds like a good poison for hunting, like south american's use of
poison dart frog's poison on tapirs and other animals, but I would be scared to eat anything if I did do it.
I found some other useful links about it I thought I would share for future viewers of this thread.
http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/plant/aconitum.htm
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Aconiti...
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UnintentionalChaos
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A valuable resource for those looking to learn about homeopathy! http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/
Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!
'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
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Bert
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Homeopathy? Placebo effect?
Probably won't work for me, neither I nor my culture have the expectation it would.
Rapopart’s Rules for critical commentary:
1. Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it
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3. Mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Anatol Rapoport was a Russian-born American mathematical psychologist (1911-2007).
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Little_Ghost_again
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I have strong strong views on homeopathic stuff, but better I say nothing. Alternative medicine works and has a well grounded scientific base, many
(most ) drugs were originally from plant extracts etc so I see no reason not to use a plant rather than a synthetic drug.
The whole water can remember etc etc etc is crap and proved to be crap.
The theory that a micro amount of something can stimulate the body to produce an effect I can also see a couple of times that may well work (protein
binding etc).
But I wouldnt dismiss homeopathic medicine or try to disprove it, simply because for some it works. ok the reasons why it works are obvious, but for
that very reason debunking it isnt doing anyone a favour 
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
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Chemosynthesis
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If you want to start a thread in Legal and Societal issues, I can post all kinds of failures, mostly from the NIH NCCAM.
The concepts behind homeopathy are different from naturopathy, which is also different from pharmacognosy. Alternative or complementary medicine is
just a blanket term that is difficult to address due to vagueness. In order to demonstrate efficacy and substantiate a non-monotonic dose response
such as hormesis, a level of quantification is necessary that is absent in any non-pharmacological/Western levels of quality control, regardless of
any potential activity within a procedure. So you essentially lack both mechanistic etiology and methodological rigor with non-evidence based
procedures.
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Bert
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| Quote: |
It was investigated as a projectile poison in WWII as well. A lethal dose of about 2 mg makes it ten times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide and
roughly comparable to nerve gases (twice as toxic as tabun actually, but about 40% as toxic as Sarin).
|
The poison garden
More than a decade back, a gentleman who taught me certain traditional techniques pointed out some flowers growing next to the side door of his family
home. "Monks hood" he called it. And added the proper Latin name, as an educated man of his generation would. Then he mentioned the Ancient Greek use
in warfare, various cultures medicinal uses- and his sincere desire to make a salad with a few leaves of this herb to be served at the imminent
convention of a political party he held in low esteem.
WMD are where you find them.
It's a very good thing that most sane people would rather die themselves than deliberately kill another human.
Rapopart’s Rules for critical commentary:
1. Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it
that way.”
2. List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. Mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Anatol Rapoport was a Russian-born American mathematical psychologist (1911-2007).
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DraconicAcid
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| Quote: Originally posted by Little_Ghost_again | | I have strong strong views on homeopathic stuff, but better I say nothing. Alternative medicine works and has a well grounded scientific base, many
(most ) drugs were originally from plant extracts etc so I see no reason not to use a plant rather than a synthetic drug. |
I've got a couple of very good reasons. First, a plant may contain any quantity of the active ingredient. One section of willow bark may be very low
in salicylates; another strip of bark from the same tree may be higher. It's very difficult to get the right dosage when you're relying on how happy
that particular plant was when it's growing.
Secondly, if you're buying your pieces of plants as a supplement rather than growing your own, the pills that you take may contain any quantity of
that particular plant, or none at all. "St. John's Wort" tablets have been tested to show, in some cases, not a trace of that particular plant.
Third, if you're buying plant pills or extract, you probably don't know where that plant was growing. A nice forest in northern Canada, or an ugly
forest downwind of the nickel mines in Sudbury? Or some ditch in an industrial area of China? The FDA doesn't test herbal supplements because
they're "natural" (not drugs) and "supplements" (not food).
If I want salicylates for my headache, I'll take a standard dose of aspirin, thanks.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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Little_Ghost_again
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| Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid | | Quote: Originally posted by Little_Ghost_again | | I have strong strong views on homeopathic stuff, but better I say nothing. Alternative medicine works and has a well grounded scientific base, many
(most ) drugs were originally from plant extracts etc so I see no reason not to use a plant rather than a synthetic drug. |
I've got a couple of very good reasons. First, a plant may contain any quantity of the active ingredient. One section of willow bark may be very low
in salicylates; another strip of bark from the same tree may be higher. It's very difficult to get the right dosage when you're relying on how happy
that particular plant was when it's growing.
Secondly, if you're buying your pieces of plants as a supplement rather than growing your own, the pills that you take may contain any quantity of
that particular plant, or none at all. "St. John's Wort" tablets have been tested to show, in some cases, not a trace of that particular plant.
Third, if you're buying plant pills or extract, you probably don't know where that plant was growing. A nice forest in northern Canada, or an ugly
forest downwind of the nickel mines in Sudbury? Or some ditch in an industrial area of China? The FDA doesn't test herbal supplements because
they're "natural" (not drugs) and "supplements" (not food).
If I want salicylates for my headache, I'll take a standard dose of aspirin, thanks. |
Hi
I didnt explain my point at all well by the sounds of it.
I agree with what your saying 100%.
What I was trying to say was, there is a difference between homeopathic medicine and natural alternatives.
I take an extract of nettle prepared in a lab, there is no equivalent drug on the market, if there was then like you I would take it.
What I tried to point out was the theory that a almost and in some cases actually zero molecule of value in homeopathic medicines, that is not the
same as some alternative therapies.
yes I take the point about willow etc and its why we have drugs so we dont have to guess how much bark to take. But the point I tried to make was
unlike the theory of water with memory that is often held in homeopathy, alternative medicine is based upon a substance that does exist.
In my own case the extract I take is prepared in a lab by professionals. It dosnt actually work on many people but for me it does help.
I think I just dont put my point across correctly. Regarding things like taking willow bark instead of a pill I couldnt agree more, but some the
things that have been tried on me are not in drug form at the moment, in my own case its a situation where there is zero lost by trying anything and
everything that may help. I am also on a drug trial program, because of my situation I am at the point that conventional drugs have reached there
limit.
But even nettle tea bags from the shops seem to help a little, but not anywhere near as much as the concentrate I take.
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
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Bert
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Little_Ghost_again, may I ask what medical issues you're dealing with?
Natural medicine users REALLY need to know what they are doing, plant derived extracts can be very complex mixtures- And some traditional plant uses
are not found to be so beneficial when looked at scientifically... THIS article being a case in point:
Aristolochia clematitis
That's a whole lot of kidney disease and cancer death among both patients and herbalists from just one family of Chinese & western traditional
medicinal plants, plus the Balkan cluster of death and disease from accidental inclusion of seeds in harvested wheat!
I'm enjoying digging through the site linked above, it's time to start thinking about the coming year's garden.
Rapopart’s Rules for critical commentary:
1. Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it
that way.”
2. List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. Mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Anatol Rapoport was a Russian-born American mathematical psychologist (1911-2007).
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goldenoranges
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| Quote: Originally posted by Bert |
| Quote: |
It was investigated as a projectile poison in WWII as well. A lethal dose of about 2 mg makes it ten times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide and
roughly comparable to nerve gases (twice as toxic as tabun actually, but about 40% as toxic as Sarin).
|
The poison garden
More than a decade back, a gentleman who taught me certain traditional techniques pointed out some flowers growing next to the side door of his family
home. "Monks hood" he called it. And added the proper Latin name, as an educated man of his generation would. Then he mentioned the Ancient Greek use
in warfare, various cultures medicinal uses- and his sincere desire to make a salad with a few leaves of this herb to be served at the imminent
convention of a political party he held in low esteem.
WMD are where you find them.
It's a very good thing that most sane people would rather die themselves than deliberately kill another human. |
Very true
Knowledge is the Ultimate Power.
PGP Key is in Bio
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Little_Ghost_again
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| Quote: Originally posted by Bert | Little_Ghost_again, may I ask what medical issues you're dealing with?
Natural medicine users REALLY need to know what they are doing, plant derived extracts can be very complex mixtures- And some traditional plant uses
are not found to be so beneficial when looked at scientifically... THIS article being a case in point:
Aristolochia clematitis
That's a whole lot of kidney disease and cancer death among both patients and herbalists from just one family of Chinese & western traditional
medicinal plants, plus the Balkan cluster of death and disease from accidental inclusion of seeds in harvested wheat!
I'm enjoying digging through the site linked above, it's time to start thinking about the coming year's garden. |
I like to grow as many ingredients as I can for my soap making, I found some great books on plants and there herbal value, it helps me avoid the ones
that are a bit toxic, on the other hand I am collecting some alkaloid poisons etc to use as comparisons in TLC and GC etc
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
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pneumatician
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I read here a bit of mockery against homeopathy 
and against water memory? a lot...
so if no molecules in homeopatic remedies of something to cure the reason of help/healing/improvement of human diseases is "placebo", ooo yeah!
naif quiz, what is placebo and how it works? how nothing can cure something?
from the aerospace institute of stuttgart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSyt_Hhbjg
not is homeopathy in the public sanitary system of germany?
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” - Nikola Tesla
"...if an entity seeks to be popular, the entity must tell the populous that which they already believe."
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DraconicAcid
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Far less than it deserves.
Please remember: "Filtrate" is not a verb.
Write up your lab reports the way your instructor wants them, not the way your ex-instructor wants them.
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Sniffity
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Aconitine is pretty poisonous, yes.
The plant it comes from, Aconite AKA Monkshood AKA Wolfsbane, is often related to werewolves and lycanthropy in literature. Wouldn't surprise to find
out that, possibly in the old times, more than a person died fron drinking a preparation of aconitine as a "wolfsbane" potion.
The Wolfman (2010) contains quite a quote:
"Even a man who is pure in heart,
and says his prayers late by night,
may become a wolf when the Wolfsbane blooms,
and the autumn moon is bright..."
So yeah: Poisonous. And on a totally unrelated note, historically related to werewolves.
But hey, the belief in werewolves is kind of comparable to the belif in homeopathy. Personally, I'd be more inclined to believe in werewolves than in
homeopathy, y'know, with my name being Sniffity?
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Chemosynthesis
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Feel free to look up
psychosomatic illnesses, nocebo, etc.
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