Letters - November 2008
Murder Ahoy: a second vitcim, Crystal clear chemistry, Is chemistry really back and Multiple-choice questions can tick the box
Murder Ahoy: a second victim
Alan Dronsfield, Chair, Royal Society of Chemistry Historical Group
In On-screen chemistry (InfoChem, September, 2008) Jonathan Hare debunks the notion that a person in the film Murder ahoy might be poisoned by curare, delivered from the spike of a 'lethal' mouse trap. There is a second murder in this Miss Marple inspired film. The victim inhales powdered tobacco in the form of snuff and instantly and unspectacularly drops down dead. A heart attack is diagnosed, but Miss Marple, using a kitchen chemistry set, concludes that the snuff had been replaced by the poison strychnine. While it would be possible to deliver a fatal dose of the alkaloid by this method, the rest of the science is decidedly suspect.
Strychnine poisoning is a dreadful death and is far from instantaneous. Symptoms include tetanus-like convulsions, lockjaw, and frothing at the mouth. The victim dies either from asphyxia, or sheer exhaustion from the repetitive fits. Not a nice way to go, and certainly not the silent demise depicted in the film.
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