"Instant" acting poison dart?

Curariform drugs act by "poisoning" the neuromuscular junction. The victim essentially suffocates. These are non-depolarizing receptor blockers. They take, at the very least, minutes to work and are dose-dependent. The currently fastest available one in clinical use is rocuronium.

Succinylcholine (Anectine) is a depolarizing neuromuscular receptor blocker that, if injected directly into a vein at clinical doses, can cause paralysis within 30 seconds in a human. The effects will wear-off in 6-8 minutes, if you haven't suffocated to death by then.

Carfentanyl and other derivaties ("Dilaudid" is the drug you had, beerina, or hydromorphone by its generic name) are synthetic opiates. They work by causing massive respiratory depression in the brainstem and not directly on muscles like the others also in a dose-dependent fashion. Carfentanyl, IIRC, is used primarily to sedate rhinoceroses because of it's incredible potency and lipid solubility (i.e., fast action at a low dose).

All the others, I would surmise, would take at the very least one circulation time to be effective as well. Some intramuscular doses may take effect quickly, but not as fast as an intravenous (or intra-arterial if it's the carotid artery and the effect site is the brain) injection would. Anywhere else and it's a crap shoot.

I suspect, as do most of you, that all of this is a little bit of Hollywood hype. Personally, the only instantly effective "dart-like" incapacitating contraption I've ever seen is the Taser.

~Dr. Imago
 
Doesn't the location of the hit also play a significant role? Hitting someone in the lower leg is quite different from hitting the carotid artery, where blood will reach the brain literately within seconds.

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
Doesn't the location of the hit also play a significant role? Hitting someone in the lower leg is quite different from hitting the carotid artery, where blood will reach the brain literately within seconds.

McHrozni
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Yes. Of course, a carotid-shot would also imply that the "toxin" would act on the brain and also be instantly transported across the blood-brain barrier. This is not true for curariform drugs, who's site of action is the motor end plate within muscle tissue itself. In that case, transport would be faster if it hit the jugular vein and was circulated systemically first.

~Dr. Imago
 
Dr. Imago said:
Curariform drugs act by "poisoning" the neuromuscular junction. The victim essentially suffocates. These are non-depolarizing receptor blockers. They take, at the very least, minutes to work and are dose-dependent. The currently fastest available one in clinical use is rocuronium.
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The only figure I can find for rocuronium gives it an onset of 1.8 minutes, which is considerably slower than the best time for Succinylcholine. But it doesn't say if the time was for intravenous or intramuscular.

(If intramuscular, this would make it faster than Succinylcholine, which takes 2 to 3 minutes to do the same.)

Dr. Imago said:
Personally, the only instantly effective "dart-like" incapacitating contraption I've ever seen is the Taser.
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But it's very hard to fit a Taser into a standard blow-gun. ;)

Dr. Imago said:
Yes. Of course, a carotid-shot would also imply that the "toxin" would act on the brain and also be instantly transported across the blood-brain barrier. This is not true for curariform drugs, who's site of action is the motor end plate within muscle tissue itself. In that case, transport would be faster if it hit the jugular vein and was circulated systemically first.
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Maybe a combo would be the best bet. One that acts on the brain in case you manage to hit the carotid, rocuronium in case you hit somewhere else, and bullet-ant venom to distract them with pain until it takes effect.

But just dipping the tip of a dart into this mix wouldn't be enough for an effective dose.

shadron said:
I was wondering if anyone would get around to the Tom Clancy book "Teeth of the Tiger". It's supposed 15 second incapacitating time is key to the plot.
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Which drug was supposed to do that? The only thing I find from a websearch is that one of the characters takes his jacket off within 15 seconds of entering his office.

(I don't think I've ever read a Tom Clancy book; I'm not into reading about thrillers/espionage, or whichever genre it is he writes.)
 
Dr. Imago said:
Yes. Of course, a carotid-shot would also imply that the "toxin" would act on the brain and also be instantly transported across the blood-brain barrier. This is not true for curariform drugs, who's site of action is the motor end plate within muscle tissue itself. In that case, transport would be faster if it hit the jugular vein and was circulated systemically first.

~Dr. Imago
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I was thinking about drugs that affect the central nervous system, yes. They wouldn't act instantly, but a few (<10) seconds is a possibility.

McHrozni
 
shadron said:
One asks what you mean exactly by death. If you shot a .38 magnum into the heart, you suffer clinical death almost immediately - the heart stops its rhythmic pumping. But brain death will take anything from 3 to 15 minutes to occur, though it is inevitable. Some people accept that unconsciousness is death, which will happen when the brain reacts to the loss in blood pressure - perhaps ten seconds or so.
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Well, the original question was vs Hollywood: Person is hit by poison dart and almost immidiately flops.

So for this, unconsciousness would suffice. When clinical death occurs is a secondary matter. Also, realistically, for putting an enemy out of action, unconsciousness (or paralysis) will do nicely.

Hans
 
In The Lost World (Jurassic Park II), there's a neurotoxin they use in dart-gun form (IIRC) which was claimed could kill before the pain from the dart was felt. Can't remember any detail though. Crichton was fairly good at writing plausible-enough science or pseudo-science stuff.
 
commandlinegamer said:
In The Lost World (Jurassic Park II), there's a neurotoxin they use in dart-gun form (IIRC) which was claimed could kill before the pain from the dart was felt. Can't remember any detail though. Crichton was fairly good at writing plausible-enough science or pseudo-science stuff.
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I remember reading that for the largest dinosaurs, it could take well over a minute for a signal to reach its brain. Maybe that's what he means?
 
Hercules Rockefeller said:
I remember reading that for the largest dinosaurs, it could take well over a minute for a signal to reach its brain. Maybe that's what he means?
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I frankly can't imagine that. Granted, the brain in their heads might be behind, but it is impossible to imagine a creature surviving if it needs over a minute to react to pain.

Hans
 
The toxin from JP was cone snail venom. It was said to "work faster than the transmission of the pain".
 
Etorphine (Immobilon or M99)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etorphine
immobilises in seconds, its a vet drug used because it works so rapidly stopping any confusion in the animal in which it might hurt itself
commonly used on Elephants and by the Bay City Butcher
:D
 
Hercules Rockefeller said:
I remember reading that for the largest dinosaurs, it could take well over a minute for a signal to reach its brain. Maybe that's what he means?
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I can't believe useful nerve tissue would take that long to transmit. Perhaps the absence of myelin sheaths? How would such slow response ever evolve, and for what reason? And how was this determined from fossilized skeletons?
 
Stings from Chironex fleckeri can kill within 4 minutes, but it takes a good amount of tentacle to accomplish this.

The sting itself is excruciating (I'm sure you've heard "like a red-hot knife") and could potentially knock out a human from the pain.

Another remarkably painful sting is from the stonefish, the most venomous fish. I'm sure it could incapacitate a human pretty quickly. People report wanting the affected limb amputated. Now that's just extreme.
 
shadron said:
I can't believe useful nerve tissue would take that long to transmit. Perhaps the absence of myelin sheaths? How would such slow response ever evolve, and for what reason? And how was this determined from fossilized skeletons?
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I've read that the reason Dinosaurs had such a slow nerve response time was because of the distance between the brain and the body and the lack of an Insular cortex in the brain (in mammals its the pain receiver part). They've made brain casts from fossils, some of the machinery is missing
;)
 
Glucose can wake someone up from a diabetic unconsciousness in a couple of seconds.

I'd probably suggest a cocktail of diazepam and ketamine, both of which work rather quickly if you hit a vein. Hitting a vein might be the hard part, though.
 
I recall seeing a show on (something like) National Geographic where Amazon natives extracted poison from the arrow poison frogs. They used it on blow darts to take a monkey. I remember it acting within just a few seconds. I'm trying to find a YouTube of it.
 
GeeMack said:
I recall seeing a show on (something like) National Geographic where Amazon natives extracted poison from the arrow poison frogs. They used it on blow darts to take a monkey. I remember it acting within just a few seconds. I'm trying to find a YouTube of it.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-CEIjBIDMc

Is this it? It takes a few minutes for the poison to work and the natives have to track them.
 
Hercules Rockefeller said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-CEIjBIDMc

Is this it? It takes a few minutes for the poison to work and the natives have to track them.
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That looks a lot like what I saw, but I seem to recall a monkey going limp within a few seconds and sort of draping over a branch. Maybe I'm mixing my recollection with some biology show where a tranquilizer gun was used to drop a monkey for a reason other than dinner.
 
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