Citation

Wehner F, Mußhoff F, Schulz MM, Martin DD, Wehner HD. Forensic Sci. Med. Pathol. 2006; 2(3): 193-197.

Affiliation

Institute for Legal Medicine Tübingen, Nägelestraße 5, D-72074, Tübingen, Germany, frank.wehner@uni-tuebingen.de.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12024-006-0009-7

PMID

25868698

Abstract

The accidental ingestion of plant material containing colchicines is a rare cause of lethal poisoning. The death of a married couple who mistook colchicines for Bear's garlic (Allium ursinum) and prepared the latter as a salad is the tragic topic of this article. After discussing the specificity of the histological findings, a chemicotoxicological method using liquid chromatographic mass spectrometric (LC-MS/MS) is presented. Toxicological analyses using LC-MS/MS revealed colchicine concentrations between 36.6 ng/mL and 98.3 ng/mL in the heart blood and between 22.7 ng/mL and 78.4 ng/mL in the femoral blood of the victims.

Language: en