Friday, February 09, 2018

50 ways to kill your lover: From Grey to Mushrooms

The probably have been deaths from people "inspired" by fifty shades of grey, but now we have pushback:

2017's Hottest Trend: Poisoning Your Man With Mushrooms

in one film it was deliberate attempt to kill, but in the second one, she just wanted to make him sick so she can nurse him/have power over him, and the second time he agrees, so it is an erotic trick in a sick relationship where he abuses her verbally for most of the movie.

The Mushroom used seems to be the Cortinarius species.

From Brittanica: a list of poisonous mushrooms, including the one that was used in the film.





The two species of webcap, the deadly webcap (Cortinarius rubellus) and the fool’s webcap (Cortinarius orellanus), are very similar in appearance to both each other and to a number of edible varieties. These mushrooms feature a poison known as orellanin, which initially causes symptoms similar to the common flu. Orellanin has an insidiously long latency period and may take 2 days to 3 weeks to cause symptoms, often leading to a misdiagnosis.

then you see this:
The toxin ultimately causes kidney failure and death if left untreated. In 2008, English author Nicholas Evans mistakenly collected and served webcap mushrooms to his relatives, resulting in hospitalization for four of them. He, his wife, and his brother-in-law all required kidney transplants as a result of the poisoning.
so not an immediate onset of symptoms as with the poisoning in the film.

Mushroom expert has a long discussion of how to identify the bad versions from the ones you can eat.

However, several other (white coloured) mushrooms, mainly the "death cap" mushroom, aka Amanita Phalloides, does lead to the onset of GI symptoms within hours of being eaten and is the most common cause of fatalities.


The clinical course of amatoxin poisoning is described in three phases: delayed gastroenteritis with significant body fluid volume loss (after a postingestion latency of 6–24 hours), symptomatic recovery (24–36 hours after ingestion), and fulminant hepatic and multiorgan failure (typically 3–5 days after the ingestion) 
Maggy Wassilieff, 'Poisonous plants and fungi - Poisonous fungi', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/9791/death-cap-mushroom (accessed 9 February 2018)

this got in the news a couple years ago when a bunch of people in the San Francisco area picked and ate some mushrooms, not realizing they were poisonous.

and they are responsible for most mushroom poisonings throughout the world.

Yes. I saw two cases of this when I worked in Africa, and it was not pleasant.

and from the University of Bath: a very funny podcast:

  Garden poisonings mp3.

or try this book:


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