Nicotine Poisoning

[stackcats]

I'm looking for information on the absorption of nicotine through the skin, specifically how long a dose remains in the body.

My story is set in England, 1919, and involves an assassin trying to win a bet; he must kill the hostess of a party, without being detected, in the middle of her speech at a dinner party.

Comments

[dandelion]

It sounds impractical, to be blunt. It's a very interesting idea, but I doubt you'd be able to get much nicotine on the wineglass stem, especially since 100% nicotine doesn't permeate the skin that well - according to this, the higest rate of absorption occurs at 50% nicotine, 50% water (of the solvents they tested), but that's not really ideal for smearing on a wineglass stem. She's also likely to notice since apparently nicotine is an oily substance, though that study does say that wiping it off doesn't stop absorption very well

[stackcats]

Okay, thanks. I've found a few other ideas now, I think I'll be discarding this one as too difficult, unless I can get reapermum's suggestion to work.

[wpenrose]

There is a fictional case where a person was murdered by placing dozens of nicotine patches on their body. This would be a lot of nicotine over a relatively long period of time. Just touching a wine glass wouldn't do it.

A cigarette supercharged with straight nicotine might do the job. Nicotine is sometimes used as a pesticide. You'd pull out some of the tobacco, put straight crystals of nicotine inside, and push the tobacco back in. There's no reason a person would detect it until the flame reached the drug. If they took another puff, that might do it. But perhaps the bitterness might warn them or even choke them.

There are deaths due to nicotine deliberately added to street drugs to increase the high. You could Google that.

The best contact poisons are organophosphate poisons used as war gases. These are not generally available, although one, called paraoxon, is used as a pesticide by licensed people.

Dangerous Bill

[stackcats]

Thanks for the advice! I may go with the 'supercharged cigarette' if I can get it to work.

[reapermum]

I'd go with spiking a cigarette. Nicotine was easy to obtain in those days. It was used to kill aphids (greenfly) and my gardening book, published in 1945, says it is cheap and readily available. But not to eat crops sprayed with it within a week of spraying.

[stackcats]

Thanks - one thing I couldn't find out was how readily available it might have been, so that's very useful.

[reapermum]

As a garden spray you dissolved an ounce of pure nicotine in ten gallons of water which had previously been mixed with a pound of soft soap. You bought the nicotine from a chemist's shop (pharmacy) and had to sign the Poisons Book to record your purchase.

[reapermum]

And of course it would have been bought by his gardener along with the lead arsenate and the Paris green. He'll need such a small amount of nicotine compared to the amount the gardener uses that it won't be missed from the garden shed and his name won't be in the Poison Book.

[subluxate]

There was a Law & Order episode that included a man being poisoned with nicotine by his partner/husband (depending on jurisdiction), and in that case, it was added to something the man ingested. If he could spike her wine, or maybe the inside of her glass, you might have a better time of it.

[aussielung]

If your hell bent on using nicotin as your poison of choice I wouldn't bother going the stem of a wine glass route. From what I understand due to how the nicotine is absorbed by the skin you actually need double if not tripple the leathel dose for it to work