I’ve been wanting to write the Alphabet of Poisons for some time now, and what better time than the 100th post of Natures Poisons. The structures are hand drawn with fountain pens, which you may have noticed in recent posts here and on Twitter, so if there’s a smudge or the bond angles aren’t perfect, that’s why.
There are so, so many poisons and toxins to choose from – especially C, inexplicably there are dozens of poisons that start with C – so if I didn’t include your favorite, let me know, and maybe it will show up in another iteration. I have links to poisons I’ve written about before at the end of the ABCs.
Thank you all for your support over the years, the insightful comments and stories shared are wonderful, so enjoy this special 100th post of Natures Poisons!
Links to Nature’s Poisons posts (I haven’t written about all of them yet, so ones without links are just placeholders):
- Aconitine
- Batrachotoxin
- Cantharidin
- Domoic acid
- Ergotamine
- Fluoroacetate
- Grayanotoxin and another one.
- Hypoglycin
- Ibotenic acid
- Jingzhaotoxin
- Kalkitoxin
- Lycorine
- Moroidin
- Nicotine (blowing smoke) and another one.
- Orellanine
- Pahutoxin
- Quinine
- Resiniferatoxin
- Scopolamine and another one (truth serum)
- Tetrodotoxin
- Urushiol
- Vomitoxin
- Wiatarin
- Xanthotoxin
- Yohimbine
- Zetekitoxin
** Featured image of Aconitum napellus by Juan Jose Sanchez (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) **
Nature's Poisons 
Poisons in Poetry ! Wonderful – many thanks it makes my day when a new post appears.
Brilliant!
Send it to Cicierega! It needs some music
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I think ‘I’ should have been ‘M’: muscimol, the decarboxylated metabolite of ‘I’.
Favorites … tasty toxins … C is for Capsaicin … and G is for Glucosinolate …
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Have you considered the Microcystins for this list? Especially the LR form.
More and more!
poisons galore.
Is there a list
that I’ve missed ?
Or is it a book
where I must look?
Wikipaedia is pretty neat,
but their lists are incomplete.
Good stuff, Gentlemen,thank you.
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Some other variants for P and M might also be available,
possibly form history-soaked, poison-loving (to solve political problems)
Mediterranean areas.
(P)ulegone an (M)enthofuran, little monoterpenes that love the liver
and come from innocent peppermint, spearmint and Roman mint
(yes, there is also American pennyroyal,
the American version of Roman mint or European pennyroyal).
What about trying to dispose of your beloved mother-in-law
with an hyperconcentrated peppermint tea?
Love the handwritten formulas!
Greetings from a fellow chemist 🙂
Don’t forget cyanide.
Awesome. My guess is you could do a version 2 with all new ones.