Post by lordhowl on Aug 5, 2010 1:41:30 GMT -5
I was reading science daily about the rather hazardously unregulated dietary supplement market in the US, before falling asleep, and I came across this:
"The organization pointed to 12 supplement ingredients in particular that it said could be dangerous: aconite, bitter orange, chaparral, colloidal silver, coltsfoot, comfrey, country mallow, germanium, greater celandine, kava, lobelia, and yohimbe."
[emphasis mine].
www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre6721f5-us-usa-supplements/
Aconite is another word for aconitine, which is the active compound in monkshood and wolf's bane!
It means, had Brigitte been in the US, she could have bought Ginger's cure at the local death food, ur, health food store. Maybe Sam was right. I guess there are people actually treating werewolfism out there-- rather desperately.
It's hard to overstate how poisonous aconitine is. It's emphasized in my novel. Here's what wikipedia says about it:
"Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and 'with large doses death is almost instantaneous.' Death usually occurs within 2 to 6 hours in fatal poisoning (20 to 40 mL of tincture may prove fatal).[13] The initial signs are gastrointestinal including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. There is followed by a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth and face, and of burning in the abdomen. In severe poisonings pronounced motor weakness occurs and cutaneous sensations of tingling and numbness spread to the limbs. Cardiovascular features include hypotension, bradycardia, sinus tachycardia, and ventricular arrhythmias. Other features may include sweating, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, headache, and confusion. The main causes of death are ventricular arrhythmias and asystole, paralysis of the heart or of the respiratory center.[14][15] The only post-mortem signs are those of asphyxia."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconitum
Merely handling the leaves of some plants in the aconitum family could poison you and possibly kill you.
In other words, unless you have a sister who's going to be tearing things into fucking little itty-bitty pieces that night, don't buy this stuff. It's good to know it's around so no one will have to go through what Brigitte, Ginger and Sam did . . .
I guess, anyway. Since the market is unregulated, the label may say aconite or aconitine, but there could be anything in it.
Why am I writing this? I'm just stunned to find that they are selling this, without any warnings.
Interesting also that colloidal silver is also on the list. I have heard nightmares about that. I wonder if Brigitte and Sam might have tried that on Ginger? Only in the USA are werewolf cures legal and available.