"Martin Brown" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote:
"Martin Brown" wrote in message
Duncan wrote:

but Nicotiana probably kills more than all the other poisonous
plants put
together.

It used to kill the people who smuggled the leaves in olden days
(nasty way to go).

So how did they die, or perhaps more correctly, I mean what was
the
cause of death?

To smuggle it sailors wrapped the leaves around their body inside
their
clothes. When they sweated profsely on a hot day the nicotine
dissolves
slightly and crosses into the body. Death by nicotine poisoning is
very
unpleasant. Tobacco pickers often suffer a milder form of nicotine
poisoning - I think it targets the central nervous system.

Interesting. Ithought it must ahve been a poisoning reference rather
than a smoking one, but had not heard of that before.

It used to be used as an insecticide in the old days but these days
is
considered too toxic in mammals (and can harbour tobacco mosaic
virus -
which will infect many other plants)..

You can extract LD50 of nicotine from a couple of cigarettes with
the
right solvents. On toxicological grounds you would not sell tobacco
to
the general public if it was discovered today. And as for smoking
the
stuff - in theory at a chemical plant you should fill in a hazardous
experiment form each time before lighting up (for doing an
experiment
that will synthesise and release known carcinogens into the
environment).

Actually it (supposedly) still can be used as poison. I've come
across organic gardeners who soaked butts and used the resultant
straind off liquid as a poison spray. In fact I was going to try it
on something myself and had soaked butts for a few days but then
couldn't find the noted I'd made to try it out so ditched the lot down
the drain.

I do know that it's supposedly not advisable to smoke whilst doing
things around one's tomatoes because of the mosaic virus.

Interesting stuff. Thanks again.