the measurement doesn’t make sense to me, why is the deadliness of poison measured in how many of something it can kill? i understand the animal, such as an elephant, is important since bigger animals need larger quantities of or more deadly poisons, but what does it mean when its said poison can kill “a herd of elephants”? how do you know that one drop can kill a multitude of individuals?
In: Chemistry
Drug doses are calculated against the LD50 or “Lethal Dose 50%” meaning that dose has a 50% chance to kill the subject. The unit of measure is mg/kg.
So lets say something has an LD50 of 100mg/kg. That means a 5g dose has a 50% chance to kill a 50 kg person and a 10g dose to kill a 100 kg person.
“Enough poison to kill a herd of elephants” is just newspaper speak. Doctors and pharmacists and chemists don’t talk like that. You’re safe to mentally replace that garbage with “A shit-ton of poison.”
Edit: The trick is that some drugs like fentanyl have lethal doses at like… 0.025mg/kg so if someone is caught with a SINGLE GRAM of fentanyl, that’s enough fent to kill like… 500 people. Instead of reporting “man arrested with a gram of fent” you get to print “man arrested carrying enough fentanyl to kill 500 people.” It’s sensationalist garbage reporting.
Double Edit. I’m not a doctor. I’m making up fentanyl numbers using a quick google on lethal dosages.
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