Symptoms
The symptoms of blood agent poisoning depend on concentration and duration.
Cyanide-based blood agents irritate the eyes and the respiratory tract, while arsine is nonirritating. Hydrogen cyanide has a faint, bitter, almond odor that only about half of all people can smell. Arsine has a very faint garlic odor detectable only at greater than fatal concentrations.
Exposure to small amounts of cyanide has no effect. Higher concentrations cause dizziness, weakness and nausea, which cease with the exposure, but long-time exposure can cause mild symptoms followed by permanent brain damage and muscle paralysis. Moderate exposure causes stronger and longer-lasting symptoms, including headache, that can be followed by convulsions and coma. Stronger or longer exposure will also lead to convulsions and coma. Very strong exposure causes severe toxic effects within seconds, and rapid death.
The blood of people killed by blood agents is bright red, because the agents inhibit the use of the oxygen in it by the body's cells. Cyanide poisoning can be detected by the presence of thiocyanate or cyanide in the blood, a smell of bitter almonds, or respiratory tract inflammations and congestions in the case of cyanogen chloride poisoning. There is no specific test for arsine poisoning, but it may leave a garlic smell on the victim's breath.
Read more about this topic: Blood Agent
Famous quotes containing the word symptoms:
“Protest, evasion, merry distrust, and a delight in mockery are symptoms of health: everything unconditional belongs in pathology.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn’t enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong. The spectacle is nearly always comic.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)