Maldore
October 15th, 2007, 04:56 AM
Skimming over various files on medicine, I encountered an article on artificial Curare, a drug that blocks acetylcholine.
Acetylcholine, for the layman, is essentially the neurotransmitter that allows you to move your skeletal muscles and diaphragm. It doesn't kill you directly, it paralyzes you and you suffocate. Acetylcholine, however, does not control the movement of the eyes, so the imbiber is still conscious of all feeling (pain, touch, hot, cold, ECT) and able to look around, but unable to move or breath. Similar to Botulism.
Artificial curare is used in medicine during surgery to isolate a patient's muscles under anesthesia.
Knowing this, I got to thinking, what about coating bullets in curare? Essentially, a miniscule amount entering the bloodstream through a superficial wound would kill in three minutes (give or take a minute depending on the person) through suffocation. It's cheap and easy to produce, and still effective when dry. The user of the bullets would have no danger (unless they touched a bullet and then put their finger in their mouth or eye). It would work great for silent assassination, weather the dose is administered in melee or through a ranged medium, the person would lose the ability to use their vocal chords and diaphragm almost instantly, rendering them unable to make noise or speak. Botulism is equally simple to produce, and far more deadly (lower dose for equal effect with curare), the only problem with that is botulism is an anaerobic bacteria and would die if in contact with air for too long.
Acetylcholine, for the layman, is essentially the neurotransmitter that allows you to move your skeletal muscles and diaphragm. It doesn't kill you directly, it paralyzes you and you suffocate. Acetylcholine, however, does not control the movement of the eyes, so the imbiber is still conscious of all feeling (pain, touch, hot, cold, ECT) and able to look around, but unable to move or breath. Similar to Botulism.
Artificial curare is used in medicine during surgery to isolate a patient's muscles under anesthesia.
Knowing this, I got to thinking, what about coating bullets in curare? Essentially, a miniscule amount entering the bloodstream through a superficial wound would kill in three minutes (give or take a minute depending on the person) through suffocation. It's cheap and easy to produce, and still effective when dry. The user of the bullets would have no danger (unless they touched a bullet and then put their finger in their mouth or eye). It would work great for silent assassination, weather the dose is administered in melee or through a ranged medium, the person would lose the ability to use their vocal chords and diaphragm almost instantly, rendering them unable to make noise or speak. Botulism is equally simple to produce, and far more deadly (lower dose for equal effect with curare), the only problem with that is botulism is an anaerobic bacteria and would die if in contact with air for too long.