Though seemingly inconspicuous, Cerbera odollam - also known as the Suicide Tree - hides a deadly se
Though seemingly inconspicuous, Cerbera odollam - also known as the Suicide Tree - hides a deadly secret within its seeds. Being a relative of the Oleander, its toxins act in a somewhat similar way. The Suicide Tree draws its name from the fact that people use it to poison themselves. It is estimated that around 50 people meet this self-inflicted end each year in the state of Kerala, India, alone. But if something’s good for suicide, it’s also good for murder. The seed’s what contains all the poison, and if someone was to crush it into a fine powder and mix it in with all the spicy Indian food and give it to someone else, who’s to know, right?In fact cerberin, the toxin found in these seeds, is undetectable by most toxicology reports, and someone has to specifically look for cerberin to actually find it. Looking for the toxin requires the use of high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry in order to be detected, a process which is quite costly, especially in India. Because of this, most cases of cerberin poisoning go unnoticed, but even so, at least one person dies of it per week in Kerala. In Madagascar up until the mid-19th century people suspected of witchcraft were subject to the “trial by Tagena” where they were forced to eat one such seed. Those few who survived were considered innocent; the others, well… died.Things gotten so out of hand that by the time King Radama II banned the practice in 1861, it was estimated to have killed around 2 percent of the island’s entire population per year; roughly 3,000 people. This trial is still believed to take place even to this day in some remote parts of Madagascar. -- source link
#nature#science#suicide#plants