Why are some chemical substances so deadly even in incredibly small quantities?
In: Chemistry
Some substances that have this property are (or act as) catalysts – substances that speed up a reaction, but they remain unchanged by the reaction so they can keep on wreaking havoc. They just tear through body tissue, leaving destruction as they go. Others act on certain critical points of the body, and when those points fail, the entire system comes crashing down. Botulinum toxin is a great example of the latter – it completely blocks neurotransmitters and when it does that in muscles that are used for breathing, it’s all over – the muscles would work fine if a signal told them to contract and relax, but no signal comes. It’s akin to crashing a jet by cutting the connection between the flight controls and the wings/engines. The wings and engines work fine, and the flight control instruments work fine, but they no longer speak to each other, so the plane is out of control. If there’s only one connection between the wings/engine and flight control instruments, one small well-placed cut or overload (or whatever) brings the plane down.
(And I know there are redundancies in flight controls – just using an analogy.)
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