Sparkling Cyanide The Ultimate Poison

Cyan is a popular poison in detective stories, and readers may often have the impression that cyan is the most poisonous material known. Potassium cyanide was listed as number 4 on an Internet list of the 10 deadliest poisons. A closer look on this list will, however, reveal to anyone that the 10 deadliest poisons claimed ate not the most poisonous substances known. 

Potassium cyanide and hydrogen cyanide have very similar efiects on humans as stomach acid changes potassium cyanide into hydrogen cyanide. This is also true 

The table shows that potassium cyanide has about the same lethal dose as another infamous poison, stiychnine. Strychnine is also popular in detective stories, which may be caused by the fact that the action, although quite different from that of cyanide, is also very rapid and easy to recognize. Another important point in these stories is that strychnine is one of the most bitter substances known, which is important for the stories as it creates an opportunity for the writer to dwell on the question of how this characteristic taste was hidden from the victim. 

Cyanide poisoning in real life usually occurs in accidents. Abitter irony of reality is that a method to effectively treat the poisoning is actually well known. The problem is that the victim is usually dead by the time the first paramedic or physician reaches the scene. This unfortunate fact is tme even where the antidotes are kept at hand because of a recognized risk of cyanide poisoning. 

Finally, let us recall an actual crime stoiy where hydrogen cyanide was used as the weapon. In Isaac Asimov s The Death Dealer (later republished under the title A Whiff of Death), one chemist is murdered by another chemist who puts sodium cyanide into ajar labeled sodium acetate . It is a basic woik-safety mle that chemicals must not be tasted, so, this is not what the murderer has planned. The killer knows that the victim often pours add onto sodium acetate, but with the switch of sodium cyanide instead of sodium acetate, lydrogen cyanide gas is liberated and it is already too late by the time the victim realizes that something is amiss. It is not an accident that Asimov created this method of murder—before becoming a professional writer, he worked as a chemistry professor. 

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